Virginia Gun Owners Forum - VGOF

ACTION ITEM: VCDL to address Richmond City Council on Monday

I (VCDLPresident) will be speaking on behalf of the VCDL at the Richmond City Council
meeting this Monday, June 22, at 6 PM.

I will be addressing the issue of the Richmond Coliseum management
making people take off their "Guns Save Lives" stickers at the recent
Glenn Beck show.

Local talk show personality, Doc Thompson, has been hammering the
Coliseum management about that issue and the management's refusal to
contact his show to discuss it.

The Coliseum claimed that stickers were something they had banned
before the Glenn Beck show, but stickers were everywhere at the
Republican convention and stickers from OTHER organizations WERE
allowed into the Glenn Beck show!

Fortunately, because Google archives web pages, it was discovered that
nothing had been posted on the Coliseum's site about stickers prior to
the Glenn Beck show. In fact, the Coliseum web site did not show
stickers as being banned until days after the Glenn Beck show, when
VCDL and Thompson turned up the heat. The Coliseum management was
clearly trying to cover its rear end.

[See here for google cache info: Richmond Coliseum Event Policies - Google Cache vs. Current]

I've had reports of members with Gun Save Lives stickers being treated
rudely by the Coliseum staff during the Glenn Beck show, as well.

It would be great if we could get a good turnout to show support for
my statements about the mismanagement at the Coliseum.

I will be at City Hall around 5:45 PM on Monday to handout Guns Save
Lives stickers.

This will also be a good opportunity to check out if there are any
problems with VCDL members carrying at City Hall. In the hopefully
**unlikely** event that security does not know the law and you are not
allowed to enter the building, comply and look for a VCDL
representative outside.

Richmond City Hall is at the intersection of 9th and Broad streets,
with the entrance on 9th street. The building is across Broad street
from the General Assembly building. There should be street parking at
that hour.

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VA-ALERT is a project of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, Inc.
(VCDL). VCDL is an all-volunteer, non-partisan grassroots organization
dedicated to defending the human rights of all Virginians. The Right to
Keep and Bear Arms is a fundamental human right.

VCDL web page: http://www.vcdl.org

Here's a follow-up from VCDL on this story. They did meet with the Richmond City Council on Monday. Well - I'll let Philip tell it like it is...

We had over 15 gun owners show up tonight to support my statements on
behalf of VCDL to Richmond City Council. I told them that the
Coliseum's management stepped over the line when they banned VCDL's
Guns Save Lives (GSL) stickers from Glenn Beck's show a few weeks ago.

After we stepped out of the Council meeting into the hall, I was
approached by Councilman Doug Conner, who is on the Land Use
committee and apparently has jurisdiction over such issues. He wants
to talk to me about the issue tomorrow.

Also Cecilia Garner, Executive Administrator under the Mayor, said she
would look into this. Ms. Garner was very professional and pleasant.

I told her that the Coliseum is the public face of the city of
Richmond and if the management company is making customers of the
Coliseum angry, that makes Richmond look bad.

Ms. Garner also took information from VCDL members at the meeting who
had been denied entrance to the Glenn Beck show unless they threw away
their GSL stickers.

The question now is what the City will do next.

One thing I do know - if they don't fix the problem, then we will be
back.

On a lighter note, Dennis O'Connor handed out lots of GSL stickers,
including to some teenage students that were at the City Council
meeting to give their teacher an award. Many of the students,
including two exchange students from Bosnia-Herzegovina, proudly wore
the GSL stickers into the City Council chambers. However, someone
told them that they had to take the stickers off for the teacher's
award ceremony.

Damn! Good try, though, Dennis.

Afterwards eight of us went to the 3rd Street Diner for fellowship.
We were welcomed there, open carry and all. In fact the waitress wore
a GSL sticker that we gave her. That, of course, forced us to give
her an extra generous tip!

I would love to have seen Senator Saslaw's face if he had walked into
the restaurant about that time, since he so wrongly believes that no
restaurant would support gun owners open carrying.