Birdneck Shoppes
I'm a bit late with this post, but I was waiting for the FOIA info to get to me. So with that...
January 7th, I've been home in VA Beach from deployment all of 48 hours, and I decided to go down to Birdneck Shoppes at 501 Birdneck, to go to the Smoke Shack there and maybe to 501 City Grill. I went into the Smoke Shack, looked around, bought a cigar, chatted with the cute gal behind the counter about my open carry, and then walked out. It was a gorgeous day, so I lit up right there, and was enjoying the weather. I wandered down the strip mall, casual, just lollygagging as I smoked, and at the far end of the complex, the owner of Motley Mutts got up in my face a bit (to make a long story short). So I walked past him, then turned around and walked back towards the other end where my car was parked, not saying anything more to him than a few words the whole time. I finished my cigar, stopped to buy some Girl Scout cookies from a little girl and her mother, and then as I was walking across the lot, a VB police car pulled into the lot behind me. Sure enough, I heard the officer's voice asking me to stop. The rest of the conversation went something like this (paraphrased to save some writing on my part):
Her: "We had a call about a man with a gun down here. I assume that's you. I see you are open carrying, and that is certainly your right, but I need to verify that you are legitimate to carry, you know, not a felon or anything like that."
me: "Ok."
"So I will need your identification, please."
"No, I'm not going to give that to you today."
"I'm asking for your identification, and you're required to give it to me."
"No, I'm not. There is no code that says I am required to show you identification to just walk around."
"Actually, there's a city code that says if a city employee asks for your ID, you have to give it to them."
(Me, laughing at her) "Now you're making sh*t up. There's no such law."
(Her, frustrated) "Can I get your name?"
"Absolutely." At which point I gave her my name, and spelled it for her.
"And your address?" Which I also gave her. Then she says, "And can I get your social security number?" I started laughing at her again.
"If I'm not going to give you my identification, what makes you think I'm going to give you my social security number? I don't just give that out. No."
So far into this conversation, it was civil and pretty professional, but I could tell she was frustrated with me. She was young, very little (like 5'2"; I'm 6'4"+), and seemed pretty out of her element. So then she says, "Well, for your protection and mine, I'm going to ask you to put your gun in your truck there, and come over to stand next to my cruiser while I run your name. I gave serious thought to telling her no again, but based on her body language, it probably wouldn't have gone well, and I still had a lot of stuff to do that weekend after having just got back from deployment, and getting into it with the cops wasn't on the list. So I bit my tongue, and said, "I can do that." So I did, and after about 5 minutes of standing on the curb texting my brother and chatting with one of the cops who had just showed up as her backup (a third one showed up as I was leaving - must have been a slow day in VB), she said I checked out, and I headed out.
One of the two post-scripts is that I emailed Internal Affairs to recommend to them that they train her a little better, because what she asked for by disarming me was actually not required and not legal. They forwarded it (or said they did) to her supervisor, so hopefully that worked out. I'm happy enough.
The second post-script is that I FOIAed all the documentation, including the 911 call that the owner of Motley Mutts made to the police. Looks like I can't attach it here due to the restrictions of file types on the forum, but I'm happy to send it to whomever wishes to hear it. He embellishes a few things, but my key takeaways were that the dispatcher told him twice that I was legal (nice job!), and that he still insisted that someone come by just to make sure I was on the "up-and-up." I didn't run into or see any of the customers he described in his call, and in fact the conversations I had both inside the Smoke Shack, and with the Girl Scout, were pleasant and a non-issue. So I'm pretty confident in saying he's anti-gun.
Since then, I've been in Walmart, Home Depot, Sakura on Newtown, Farm Fresh on Indian River, Dario's Pizza at Holland and South Plaza (great pizza!), Mi Casita at Rosemont/264, El Taco Loco over by Sam's on the Boulevard, Office Depot and OfficeMax down near Military/VA Beach Blvd, and a few other places around town. No issues. Had a conversation just tonight with a gentleman from FL who was asking how it worked here in VA. Good chat.
