Utah Restaurant Staff to Stop Open-Carrying Guns After Move

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS OGDEN, Utah — Aug 20, 2016, 7:04 PM ET

A Utah restaurant known for kilt-clad servers who openly carry firearms will have to keep them under wraps starting this week.

The staff at Sea Bears Ogden Fish House can only carry concealed weapons now that the eatery has relocated to the city's historic Union Station.

Officials with the Union Station Foundation are not allowing open carry of firearms, the Standard-Examiner of Ogden reported ( http://bit.ly/2bKqljM ). Initially, the contract that foundation executive Elizabeth Sutton negotiated with Sea Bears permitted open-carry but with conditions. They included owners and wait staff with firearms had to have undergone safety classes and background checks. Also, weapons had to be in holsters and guns could not be longer than 12 inches. All weapons could not be permitted outside of the restaurant in other parts of Union Station.

The Union Station Foundation, however, received complaints that Sea Bears would retain its open-carry policy. As a result, Sutton exercised a provision that Union Station could ban open-carry altogether if the subject became an issue.

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No open-carry guns will be allowed in Sea Bears at Union Station

SATURDAY , AUGUST 20, 2016 - 5:30 AM

Mark Saal
Columnist

OGDEN — I’ll have the fish and chips — and hold the holster.

Sea Bears Ogden Fish House, which made headlines earlier this spring for the restaurant’s practice of being an “open-carry” business, may be putting away the guns. Or, at the very least, concealing them.

For more than a year now, owners, employees and patrons of the restaurant at 2550 Washington Blvd. have been invited to open-carry the firearm of their choice in the establishment. But with the recent announcement Sea Bears is relocating to the former site of Union Grill, Ogden’s Union Station officials now say they won’t permit openly carrying a gun there.

"In this day and age, to see somebody carrying in public, you don't know right away if it's friendly or scary," Sutton said. "So, to make everyone feel safe, we felt that open-carry does not meet our mission and goal."

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