Northbrook forbids employees from concealed carry, drawing pro-gun enmity
Richard Pearsons, center, executive director of the Illinois State Rifle Association, said May 15 that his group may fight Northbrook's new work rule forbidding concealed guns. | Irv Leavitt/Sun-Times Media
A new Village of Northbrook work rule has drawn applause from a local gun control advocate and brickbats from a state gun-rights group.
The rule forbids village employees and contractors from carrying guns or other weapons on village property or on private property, while on the job.
“As I read it, it’s about as broad a policy as they could have written,” Lee Goodman, who fought Illinois’ new concealed carry law, said May 15. “I’m thrilled with it.”
Northbrook resident Goodman said it goes far beyond any other anti-gun employee rule he’s seen in the wake of the passage of the state law, in that it forbids guns and other weapons wherever an employee goes within Northbrook while on the clock, not just on village property. And it applies to contractors performing work for the village, not just staff.
It goes too far, said Richard Pearson, executive director of the Illinois State Rifle Association, the local arm of the National Rifle Association.
“They’re taking these peoples’ rights away from them,” he said May 15.
“Villages, cities and towns in Illinois are known for these sorts of cases, and it’s cost them a lot of money.”
“We’ve already got an attorney working on it,” he added.
Soon, his group will decide whether to launch an attack on the work rule, he said.
Goodman, himself an attorney, said he’s hoping the policy encourages other local governments to enact similarly broad work rules.
“There’s nothing in the (state) law from preventing a meter reader, a crossing guard crossing kids across the street, or the garbage collector from carrying a gun,” Goodman said.
“All the evidence shows, all around the country, that the more guns are around, the more people get shot.”
The village “SOP” (Standard Operating Procedure) regarding weapons is within the authority of Village Manager Rich Nahrstadt, Deputy Village Manager Jeff Rowitz said. Dated May 13, It was sent in a non-public personnel document to the Northbrook Village Board that day.
The work rule stays in effect unless trustees object.
They didn’t, said the Northbrook trustee who heads the village’s public safety committee.
“I think Rich’s policy is fine for what the village needs,” Trustee A.C. Buehler said.
“The police are the best trained in the public use of firearms. The idea is, basically, to have an (otherwise) weapons-free village” workforce, said Goodman, a former Democratic candidate for Congress in the 10th district, who obtained the SOP through the state Freedom of Information Act May 14.
The SOP is a bad idea, Pearson protested.
“If they go anywhere where someone tries to attack them or hurt them, those people have a right to self-defense, and they have a right to take action in their own self-defense.
“The right to carry gives them the right to protect innocent people,” he added.
Municipal employees are “all around, and they can protect those people. This also takes that protection away from those people.”
But Goodman thinks guns cause more trouble than they stop.
“Any number of incidents find people, in the heat of the argument, pulling out guns and shooting at other people,” he said. “If guns aren’t there, people might just argue.”
The SOP may not actually apply to all those who provide services in Northbrook, such as the garbage collectors Goodman mentioned.
Advanced Disposal Service employees pick up Northbrook trash, but the firm is not technically a contractor, Buehler said. Instead, it has a refuse-collection franchise with the village.
Rowitz said May 15 that Advanced has its own work rule forbidding carrying guns on the job, however.
In addition to firearms, the Northbrook SOP bans employee and contractor use or carrying of Tasers or stun-guns, jack knives with blades over three inches long, clubs, bows-and-arrows, sling shots and brass knuckles.
Steak knives and carving knives are banned outside kitchens and break rooms.
Visitors to village property also must disarm, according to the SOP.
Employees can be fired or otherwise disciplined for violations, according to the document. Visitors in violation may be removed from village property or arrested, since it’s illegal to carry a concealed weapon into any public building marked with a no-guns sign on the door, and that’s the standard in Northbrook.
The SOP instructs employees to not interfere with violators, but to inform a supervisor.
http://northbrook.suntimes.com/news/guns-NBS-05212014:article
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