Gun question at Outback Restaurant stirs lots of debate

CHATTANOOGA (WDEF) – The story of a Tennessee Wildlife Resource officer who was asked to leave a restaurant because he was wearing a gun, has gone viral.

It became a hot topic of conversation for those who oppose current gun laws, and those who have permits to carry.

In the post that has now gone viral, Andrew Ward, a TWRA officer, said he was asked to leave an Outback Steakhouse restaurant in Cleveland last Friday night because he was carrying his gun.
The restaurant manager asked him to leave the weapon in his truck….and ward told the manager he couldn’t because he was in uniform.

In his facebook post, Ward wrote that the manager asked him to leave because Outback Steakhouse is a gun-free zone.

Restaurant owners we spoke with said they would have made a different call.

Portofino’s owner Tony Giannourakis told us “We have a lot of customers come in with their, with their uh, weapons or guns but we don’t have no problem, so absolutely no complaints from other customers.”

And Missi Hurt from Wally’s Restaurant adds “We have tons of East Ridge Police Department, Chattanooga Police Department, everybody from the surrounding areas that come in here, they do carry their guns in here. We have never had a problem, we’ve never asked anybody to leave, and I mean, no customers have ever even said anything.”

Tawnya Jones at Wally’s: “In some ways there’s something comforting about having them, you know, so I think that it’s a good thing. You know, it shows that you know they’re here, they’re here for us, and they’re, and it’s not a problem. It’s really not.”

Ward’s original post was shared more than 123,000 times.

He says he was later contacted by Outback management who apologized and called the decision a mistake.