Americans are fairly consistent in their displeasure with Panera Bread for Monday’s announcement telling gun owners to leave their guns at home before visiting Panera.
Nevermind that the St. Louis-based company (Also known as the Atlanta Bread Company near that city and as the St. Louis Bread Company near St. Louis) has a long record of bad guys victimizing employees and / or customers at their stores. To name a few (h/t to TTAG): Omaha, Nebraska; Ocala, Florida; Indianapolis, Indiana; Milton, Georgia; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Aberdeen, Maryland; Needham, Massachusetts; Greensboro, South Carolina and Gainesville, Georgia. … carjacking in Columbus, Ohio. …mugging in Eldersburg, Maryland.
And if you Google St. Louis Bread Company armed robbery, you get 141,000 results, whereas Googling “Atlanta Bread Company robbery” gets you 56,000 entries. Nah, there’s no need to bring your gun to Panera! You’re perfectly safe… until you become Google entry #141,001.
Shannon Watts aka Shannon Troughton, President and owner of of VoxPop Public Relations, a boutique liberal PR firm, had this to say to CNBC:
“We are thrilled that after months of discussions between Panera and Moms Demand Action, Panera is taking a proactive position in favor of our families’ safety by putting a new gun policy in place. Moms are the consumers-in-chief of our households and we will reward companies that take a stand for our families’ safety. We urge other national companies follow suit.”
One of our members, Bob from Wilmington, IL, called this morning and said he contacted Panera’s corporate offices and they reiterated that this request for gun owners to leave their guns at home was only a request and that they weren’t going to post their stores or ask anyone to leave.
The bigger problem for Panera is that when gun owners like Bob hear Panera’s statement, they are alienated from the company.
Moms Demand Action moms are certainly in the minority in the polls we’ve seen. And the reaction of consumers is consistent and doesn’t bode well for Panera. Here are but a couple of polls we ran across.
The bottom line is that by a two to one margin or more, Americans aren’t impressed with Panera’s announcement.
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