I stopped into Johnny Burrito, one of my favorite uptown lunch spots, today and Johnny himself (aka Johnny Bitter) was behind the cash register. He thanked me for a photo I had shot in May that ran in the Observer with an editorial about the visiting NRA convention. The photo showed a sign he had put up offering a free soda or iced tea to anyone showing a gun permit.
They’d had a lot of business after the photo ran, Bitter told me. Because his shop is in the basement of the Building Formerly Known As Two First Union (sorry but I have no clue what its name is anymore, it’s the College Street tower behind the Atrium on South Tryon), he’d had a lot of Wells Fargo folks come in, he said. Showing their gun permits.
It was a surprising number, he said. And they were mostly concealed-carry permits. Regular people, he said. Many of them long-time and frequent customers. People with families and everything. Who knew?
Of course, you’re not allowed to have a gun in the bank towers. But if it’s a concealed carry permit …
Happily, no gun play broke out at Johnny’s and hasn’t, to our knowledge, broken out at the bank tower either. Just don’t get too snippy with that teller, or your loan officer.