For Maine restaurateur, a gun debate turns nasty
PORTLAND, Maine — Diners at the Grace restaurant sit under a vaulted ceiling and stained-glass windows in a former Methodist church built in the 1850s. Its cool, spiritual chic comes with a catch: No one who owns an assault rifle — or even supports the right to own one — is welcome.
Grace’s owner, Anne Verrill, posted that dis-invitation on Facebook shortly after a June 12 shooting rampage at an Orlando nightclub killed 49 people. Verrill was outraged at yet another mass shooting, this time the worst one on US soil by a single assailant, and she had had enough.
On her post, Verrill attached a picture of an assault rifle and wrote: “If you own this gun, or you condone the ownership of this gun for private use, you may no longer enter either of my restaurants, because the only thing I want to teach my children is love.”
The reaction was instantaneous — and overwhelmingly hostile — and its passion is reflected in a debate raging throughout the state, where voters will decide in November whether background checks should be expanded to private gun sales.
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