Hello. I'll be driving through VA next month on my way from NH to TN, I-81 the whole way. I'll be carrying and will most likely be stopping for dinner and lodging somewhere along the VA portion of my journey.

I plan to have a burger and a beer, which I know raises some issues, so I'm  hoping for a little guidance from those of you in the know.  I know this is a topic that typically ignites some policy debate, so I'll try to narrow my question as much as possible in order to stay on track.

Here's what I think I know:

- I am permitted to carry concealed in an establishment that serves alcohol as long as I don't drink.
- I am permitted to drink in such an establishment if I am carrying openly.
- Some people on this board, and generally, object to any consumption of alcohol while carrying. Thank you for your concern, but I disagree with such a blanket personal policy and that is not what I am asking about. That issue has already been flogged to death.
- Some will wonder whether I am unable to go without having alcohol. Yes, I am perfectly able to abstain and I usually do so. But I am accustomed to being able to have a beer if I so choose. After a long drive, I anticipate that I will so choose. That is not what I am asking about.
- Some will object to open carry. I carry concealed when lawfully able to do so. I carry openly in limited circumstances. That is not what I'm asking about

Here's what I don't know and what I am asking about:

- Will drinking a beer while openly carrying in a restaurant (not in NoVa) raise eyebrows or cause me problems?
- Am I complying with the law if I reduce my profile by concealing on the way in/out but exposing my grip by simply tucking my shirt while dining?
- Am I complying with the law if I do the foregoing while seated in a booth such that my openly carried sidearm is not readily visible to the waitstaff or other patrons?

My interest is to simply have a burger and a beer while keeping a low profile.

Thanks.

Why not get your burger to go, then stop at a 7-11 for a few bottles of beer, and have your burger & beer in your hotel room, with your feet propped up, all comfy, watching the TV?

Or just leave your roscoe in the car while you're eating & drinking.

Just for the record, I can't see any sense in pushing the envelope and drinking beer while open carrying.

Drinking beer while open carrying in a restaurant is NOT "keeping a low profile".

Good luck getting served alcohol if you are open carrying.  

I always thought it was illegal to consume and carry but it appears I was incorrecct, its just illegal to be intoxicated while carrying.  

I won't get into a discussion on drinking alcohol and carrying, I'm just going to focus on the OP's questions.



I think you are focused on obeying the law to the very letter.  I can't answer for certain, but I can provide some insight on my experience.

I live in NoVA but spend time all over the state.  I always carry, usually a pistol/rig designed for concealment, but sometimes in just a strong side belt holster.  I have always found it much better to simply throw a shirt over my pistol when out in public.  It is obvious for anyone who pays attention I have something blocky on my hip, but I doubt if even 1% of the populace has ever noticed I had a gun on.

If you were to walk into a restaurant with your shirt untucked, sit in a booth such that your strong side faced away from the aisle and then exposed your pistol grip I seriously doubt anyone in the restaurant would have any idea if you were carrying.  I have no idea if this would be considered 100% compliance with the law of concealed/open carry and alcoholic beverages, but unless you do something else that requires you to interact with the police I don't think it will come up.

FWIW, I have never personally heard of anyone having a legal issue due to open vs. concealed carry inside an establishment selling alcohol, but I don't usually see people open carrying inside bars or restaurants (of course maybe I just don't frequent the right type).

ETA: FWIW, if I plan to go inside a bar and drink, I lock my pistol in a small lockbox and leave it cabled beneath the front seat.  I have never gone into a restaurant armed and ordered a drink.

Well if this is really your interest, keep your gun out of sight and it will be that simple.

I wouldn't push drinking and carrying, I wouldn't even push having a drink and then hitting the road again really. Staties absolutely love catching people right from a restaurant who have had a few. Id do as stated above, get the burger to go, get the brewskis, and hit the hotel room. No need to push your luck

Open carry is the conflicting idea of keeping a low profile

I would say that it depends on the city, and there is a lot of variety on 81 between the small towns, the medium sized towns, and the college towns.

However, unless you are LEO, I think even most gun owners will look at you funny if you are drinking while carrying. I love beer, and I love guns, but I keep the two separate.

The good news is that most of the people in VA won't even notice a gun.

-shooter

I was not going to respond to this thread but after reading some of the other responses I just had to.

Sorry OP but I am not going to respond to your questions on the matter. I think a couple of people already gave a couple of good answers.

What I am going to say is I did not get the idea the OP was planning on getting drunk or any kind of heavy drinking. He simply asked about getting a beer with dinner. There is nothing wrong with getting a beer with dinner and driving. There is nothing wrong with getting a beer while carrying a gun if doing so legally.

Most adults can have "a beer" while eating food and not even get buzzed. Nor even close to the legal limit of a DWI. If you can not just have one beer with dinner, then the posters suggesting not drinking and driving or carrying a gun are correct--don't do it. Or if you can not handle your alcohol then don't do it. I did not get the sense the OP was in either of these groups.

If somebody can not be responsible while drinking, responsible with a car, then what the hell are they doing with a gun because I would not trust a person to be responsible with a gun if they can't be responsible with the first two.

And don't get me wrong. Nothing wrong with getting drunk or having a good time. Just do it responsibly. Use a DD and don't drive. Don't carry a gun.

It doesn't matter whether or not anyone can see the gun based upon your seated position. What matters is simply how you are carrying. If you are carrying openly and seated normally, then the fact that someone on the opposite of your body cannot see the gun is not an issue.

No.
Yes.
Yes.

If I was on the 81 corridor, I'd offer to grill up some burgers and you could just stop in and have a burger/beer at my place.

Setting aside the whole carrying a firearm issue -

.08 BAC is DUI in VA. Depending on an individual's body weight, metabolism, etc. one beer could put you there.

I would be much more concerned about that than anything else. VA is kinda... strict nuts when it comes to
traffic laws and DUI. People get locked up here for speeding.

Oh, and I am by no means a puritan - I just drink at home.  

And the guy who posted about wearing an untucked shirt and sitting with your holstered firearm to the wall - I think
that's the best advice in this thread.  

-Warren-

I think your entire concept is foolish... don't drink and drive... alcohol and firearms are a bad combination.  Risk benefit is just not there.

Just to prove how strict and sometime down right ridiculous they can be about some laws, a friend of mine was pulled over and ticketed for window tint...........that was factory installed......he managed to get out of it when the judge called bs lol

I agree with Clamp, but it seems like you are determined to carry AND drink.  Good luck.
I live in Va Beach and the cultural shift IMHO has been fewer and fewer raised eye brows at open carry and a greater acceptance of carrying in general.  That being said there are still the antis who are looking for a fight and someone drinking a cold one open carrying is asking to be "reported" or "SWATTED".  God forbid you get into an altercation after you have been seen drinking in public.  
I would follow all the common sense above and just not carry while drinking.  If you do insist on drinking and carrying, I would learn the following phrase...

"I fully intend to cooperated officer but from this point forward I feel it is best that I am represented by my lawyer"...

To those who have answered the questions, thank you. I've stayed quiet while waiting for actual answers in order to avoid a policy/morality debate.

But, I guess I should not be surprised that so many more chose to ignore the questions and make policy arguments and moral judgments; neither of which were the point of my questions. You either did not read the OP or can't resist casting aspersions. Since it has gone down that road, well...here goes...

My intent is not to "drink and carry" on my journey, as has been stated with some derision, any more than it is my intent to buy an air filter and carry, go to the library and carry, or pick up my kids from school and carry on any other day. I just go about my day and choose to carry a sidearm for protection while I do so. My intent is just to drive to TN. I might pee while carrying on the way too, but that's not an agenda item either.

Many of you live in a jurisdiction that requires you to actively plan your defensive situation around your daily activities because you have to deal with prohibited locations or prohibited conduct.  Obviously that has an impact on the prevailing culture surrounding you and your personal protection choices. I do not live in such a jurisdiction. Unless I am traveling, which is rare, I have the freedom to go about my day constrained by nothing more than my own personal responsibility. It's a wonderful thing. So, I never actually think about doing X "while carrying." I just go about my day.

As I stated in the OP, I do not share the opinion some of you have that carrying responsibly and drinking responsibly are mutually exclusive. Your statements to that effect are no different than those of anti-gunners panicking about blood running in the the streets in situations they find uncomfortable. Your comfort level in that regard is not universal and you should be very careful about imposing it on others. Come to NH, VT, PA, or many other states that let your personal responsibility be your guide and you will be around responsible adults who carry and drink responsibly and the blood will not run, I assure you.

Note that I did not ask about finding a place to shoot while drinking. There is a huge difference between actively using a tool, any tool, and simply having access to it. I do not shoot while drinking, nor do I use chainsaws, drill presses, or extension ladders. Yet I have access to all of these things. My reason and responsibility keep me from using them. My choices. Yet, if a tree came down on my daughter's room sometime after Miller time, I'd cut the sumbitch up and get my drinkin' ass up on that ladder in a heartbeat.

When I carry, I have no intent on doing ANYTHING with my gun, including touching it, until I get home and put it on the nightstand. That applies whether or not I choose to have a drink. And, if I choose to have a drink, that decision has zero impact on whether I may become the victim of a crime. I do not surrender my right to effective self defense simply because I chose to engage in responsible legal conduct. And, yes, I accept the potential burden of my choices if I have to act in my own defense. (I also carry a 1911 and have carried evil Bkack Talon ammo back in the day; both of which, I have been assured, would lead to my conviction in an otherwise justified shoot. Watch your trigger jobs fellas).

I asked my questions because I am leaving my jurisdiction and entering yours. I asked not about the efficacy nor the morality of the situation. I asked about the legal and cultural differences between my region and yours so that I could comply with the law AND not go strutting into a restaurant like like an open carry attention whore while doing so.

As much as some want to criticize the choice it appears that the conduct I asked about is legal. Yet, you would put an extra-legal universal prohibition on such conduct based on your social mores and predilections. You are, through ridicule, enforcing a prior constraint for fear of what MIGHT happen.

I am a 50ish old fart raising responsible kids. I don't party, go out, or stay up past 9:00 pm. I just want to have a damn beer with my burger after driving a few hundred miles while not creating a shitstorm.

All I wanted to know is whether I can cover on the way in and on the way out. Having poked around a little more while reading answers, it appears that covering on the way out is asking for trouble as concealing opens the door to a carrying while under the influence charge (which has no defined BAC) while open carrying does not.

Come on up to NH sometime, gentlemen. The weather sucks but the freedom feels just fine.

Sorry for the rant and thank you to those who answered.

I am going to change gears - one problem you face in VA is that most of our law is actually case law/derived from common law. The statutes tend not to say much.

Your questions get into "splitting hairs" territory because of room for interpretation that is just not very well established. If you encounter officers who actually know the law, you should be fine. However, it is very easy for someone with even a pretty decent understanding to make an argument that what you did was illegal in the case of 2/3. There are too many variables (how much weapon showing is "concealed", does having a beer while carrying only mean when it is in your hand, or when you are on the premises?) - to know for sure what the outcome would look like. And how any observer, and especially an LEO would see it.

There are still some parts of VA where the LEOs are so ill-trained on the law that they stop open carriers and act like there is a crime in progress. In other parts of the state (or even 100 yards away encountering a different officer), they may wave and say hi, or even want to talk guns with you. There isn't a universal answer here.

While I generally avoid having beer and guns together, I have also been in a very large bar with a LOT of SWAT types from a MAJOR agency. They were almost all armed with 1911s and doing a lot of shots (tequila, not discharging a weapon). I didn't feel any less safe - but it certainly would have made interesting newspaper fodder for 50+ SWAT guys to be in a shooting had someone chosen that minute to rob the place.

-shooter

To simply answer the OP's question,  I agree with FireFighter.  No, Yes, Yes. However I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.

Even in Nova open carrying in a restaurant doesn't raise too many eyebrows.  My youngest son is about to turn 20 and he open carries when we go out for dinner (or at least did until he joined the Army a couple months ago)  Once at a Magic Mushroom we had a manager stop by and ask about it, at the table were 3 of us concealed carrying and my son open carrying.  We were not asked to leave and the manager was educated on the law.  Had my son not been sitting on the outside of the booth no one would have noticed.

The way I read the law, you can't conceal while consuming alcohol, as you enter or leave the restaurant you are not consuming alcohol so why would you need to open carry.  

Well this is the internet, I think you pretty much knew you were going to get some of the responses you did when you first posted.  Just ignore the responses that you told people not to post in the first place and go with the people who answer your questions.

As for the concealing while intoxicated, while it does not require a BAC ilke DUI does, it does require some actions on your part just like drunk in public does.  If you are staggering, swearing or showing other signs of intoxication you had more than 1 beer with dinner unless you way 75 lbs and the beer was 32 oz.

Asking a legal question on the internet forum is your first mistake.
Do whatever you feel/think right, and you deal with the result that might be or might not be positive.

I'm not going to rehash the other responses other than to say the I-81 corridor (at least the south & central parts) is probably the most friendly area of the state to open carry. I live around Richmond but I travel around the state often. In my experience it is very rare to see open carry in central Virginia and even rarer in NOVA (you are wise to avoid that place for many reasons). However I have seen it frequently in the I-81 area and I don't think it would raise any eyebrows.

Would you suggest that I hire an attorney before traveling?

You are correct if you are suggesting that matters of statutory construction should not be resolved over Internet forums. But is it not reasonable to ask whether anybody has insight or experience that might be helpful? Maybe someone can point me to a helpful resource.

You and I can both read the statutes and determine that it is lawful to drink while carrying openly and unlawful to do so while carrying concealed. But obviously there are nuances that aren't readily revealed in the statute. To that point, shooter220's post is one of the most helpful responses. But that doesn't mean there are no answers short of hiring an attorney.

For example, if you wanted to know whether you can can carry in NH, you can look up the statutes and find out that you can do so in one of two ways: openly,  because there is no law against it, or concealed with a permit.. But you might not know that you can carry concealed and unloaded and you might not know what "unloaded" means because it's not addressed in the statute. If you asked in the NH HTF, I could point you to the recent Supreme Court case that says you can conceal while carrying a loaded mag as long as it's not in the gun and there is no round in the chamber. Not the most effective means of carrying, but it's legal. That's not obvious from the statute nor is it the case in all states, so that would be useful and verifiable information, right?

You will still find internet commandos that say you can't have any ammo on you but perhaps I could give you useful information that sorts through the Internet noise. Wouldn't that help you without compelling you to hire an attorney?

That's the type of information I was seeking. But, people can't help themselves when the opportunity to prosthelytize arises.

This is helpful. Thank you.

Oh, one other thing, you didn't ask but many out of towners find out the hard way: over 80 mph is reckless driving in this state. Much of I-81 has a 70 mph speed limit so 10 over is a bad idea. Our troopers get people from out of state constantly.

Just conceal carry and have your burger and beer.  I appreciate you trying to respect our laws, but sometimes I disagree with them.  There should be no reason between OC and CCW of why OC is a more appropriate posture to have a drink in than CCW.  The law simply does not make sense. IMO, the whole point of why you can OC and drink is just to portray gun owners as wreckless and dangerous ie "oh lawd, look at that man drinking a beer with a gun on his hip!"

Dude, concealed means concealed.  Do it right, no one will know you have it on you but you and the good Lord.

Well, I'm sure the CA and the judge will take the "some guy on the Internet doesn't agree with the law" defense into consideration if he gets nabbed following your advice.

The only people I have ever heard of having any issue in a bar when carrying a gun are the people who get drunk or are looking for trouble. I have never ever heard of the cops staking out a bar watching for people breaking gun laws. DWI yes, guns no.

I highly doubt the OP will have any issues at all driving down I-81.

Again, don't get nabbed. Concealed means concealed.  OCing makes you more of a focus among patrons in a restaurant than CCW anyway.

Having a single beer with a burger while a pistol in your waistband = misdemeanor
Having a single beer with a burger while a pistol is in an exterior hoslter and not blowing a .08 = legal

Makes no sense other than it being a liberal compromise to get the restaurant carry bill passed years back. OP, enjoy your time in Virginia, just mind your Ps and Qs, stick to establishments along I-81 and you'll be fine.