Meijer posted its request on Twitter in a two sentence statement on Monday afternoon.
It says visible firearms can make customers and employees feel in danger.
The company's new policy does not address concealed firearms and it does not ban openly carried ones.
In recent weeks, in the wake of mass shootings, other large retailers, like Walmart, Kroger, ALDI, Walgreens, and CVS, have also asked customers to not openly carry guns in their stores. Starbucks and Target adopted similar policies in 2013 and 2014, respectively.
The safety of our customers and team members is our top priority, so we respectfully request that our customers do not open carry firearms at Meijer. We’ve made this decision because open carry can create an environment that makes our customers and team members feel unsafe.— Meijer (@meijer) September 9, 2019
Meijer is headquartered in Michigan. It has more than 240 stores located in six states: Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Illinois and Wisconsin.
The company did not respond to multiple interview requests.
Correction: A previous version of this story stated that Meijer posted the announcement on Tuesday. The company posted on Twitter on Monday.
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