Blog Post: Arizona Enacts Law Permitting Firearms In Private Parking Areas

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posted Monday, August 10, 2009 4:12 PM

by Barbara Dillon, Arizona Marketing Manager, Sherman & Howard

Arizona Enacts Law Permitting Firearms In Private Parking Areas

By Bill Wright

With the enactment of A.R.S. § 12-781, Arizona forbids employers from establishing, maintaining, or enforcing policies against storing guns in employees' cars in the employer's parking lot. The new statute applies to property owners, tenants, employers and businesses, and forbids any policy that prohibits people from lawfully storing firearms in their locked motor vehicles or in a locked compartment on a motorcycle. The statute requires that the firearms be out of sight in the vehicle or motorcycle. Several other states have similar laws.

The Arizona statute does not create any special enforcement mechanisms for violations of the policy ban. However, the statute specifically provides that policies restricting firearms from being lawfully stored are contrary to public policy. Consequently, employers who attempt to discharge an employee for bringing a gun to the workplace and leaving it out of sight in a locked car, likely face a claim for wrongful discharge in violation of public policy.

The statute has several exceptions. Owners, tenants, employers and businesses may still restrict illegal weapons - where the possession violates federal or Arizona law - and employers may restrict the storage or transportation of firearms in a company-owned vehicle. In addition, owners, tenants, employers, and businesses may make special parking arrangements for people who store firearms in their vehicles, including (a) a fenced and secured (with a guard or otherwise) parking area with temporary, accessible and secure gun storage outside the parking area, or (b) a special parking area, reasonably near the primary parking area, where persons storing firearms may park. The restrictions do not apply to parking for single family detached residences, or to U.S. Department of Defense Contractors with parking on a U.S. military base.

Here are some steps to be considered by Arizona employers that cannot satisfy a statutory exception:

revising employment policies to prohibit employees from carrying or using weapons in the workplace, rather than prohibiting weapons in cars in the parking lot;

prohibiting any firearms in company-owned vehicles;

prohibiting any illegal firearms on company premises;

prohibiting employees from having ammunition in their vehicles on company premises;

prohibiting employees from having firearms in plain view in vehicles on company premises;

establishing a fenced and secured parking area outside the main parking area, with temporary, accessible and secure gun storage;

establishing a special parking area for those storing firearms, reasonably near the primary parking area;

implementing a reporting mechanism, so that any supervisor or manager who becomes aware of an altercation in the workplace reports the matter to responsible security personnel, charged with monitoring a combatant's possible retrieval of a weapon from a vehicle on the premises;

implementing a video surveillance system to detect the removal of a weapon from a vehicle on the premises; and

re-examining security precautions at entrances to the facility.

Sherman & Howard has prepared this advisory to provide general information on recent legal developments that may be of interest. This advisory does not provide legal advice for any specific situation. This does not create an attorney-client relationship between any reader and the Firm. If you want legal advice on a specific situation, you must speak with one of our lawyers and reach an express agreement for legal representation.