SC law change means guns, weapons still allowed at hotels — even if hotel says ‘no’
As of Sunday, residents and visitors in South Carolina are allowed to openly carry guns and other weapons as long as they have a state permit.
That amounts to being allowed to carry a pistol in a holster on your hip if you’ve taken a training course and have a permit.
But the law change also gives business owners additional power to determine what weapons they allow on their properties. Previously, guns and weapons had to be fully concealed, such as in a bag or in a vehicle.
In hotels, though, gun owners will have additional rights, and will likely be allowed to carry their weapons into the hotel and up to their rooms, regardless of what hotel owners say.
Under South Carolina law, if business owners don’t want a person carrying a weapon in their establishment, either openly or concealed, they have to place a sign — the size, language and font are all prescribed — on the entrances to the business. Those signs can say openly carrying a weapon is not allowed, meaning a person can still carry a weapon if it’s concealed.
Or, those signs can say concealed carrying is not allowed, meaning no weapons are allowed on the premises.
But even if a hotel or motel chooses to post those more restrictive signs, and not allow weapons at all, other South Carolina laws allow a gun owner to continue carrying their weapon.
According to Myrtle Beach Police Captain Joey Crosby, who gave a briefing on the law changes to local business owners Tuesday morning, hotel rooms in South Carolina are covered under a legal statute known as the Castle doctrine, meaning that guns can be carried in hotels even if restrictions are in place.
“A lot of people sometimes don’t realize this, if you’re staying in a hotel room, you can transport it from the parking lot into the hotel,” Crosby said. “If you have someone who puts it in their duffel bag or they put it on them really quick to take it from point A to point B they are allowed to do it if it’s a straight shot.”
South Carolina’s new open carry law allows anyone to carry a weapon not larger than 12 inches long anywhere they’re not explicitly told they can’t have a weapon. That includes businesses with proper signs saying concealed or openly-carried weapons aren’t allowed, as well as court houses, polling places on Election Day, rooms where local governments meet, school and college campuses, day-cares and preschools, federal buildings, and police stations and jails.
To be allowed to openly carry a weapon, a person has to pass a training course and keep a concealed weapons permit on them.
The hotel exception, Crosby said, sets up a situation where the rights of gun owners and business owners could collide.
“Technically by law, if you have the sign up, then by law the (concealed weapons permit) holder has to comply with that because you as a business owner have the right to say no weapons,” Crosby said. “But the hotel is covered in the (Castle) doctrine.”
The Castle doctrine, generally speaking, gives a person the right to defend themselves if they’re attacked at home. Other self-defense laws have a “retreat” requirement, meaning that a person has to try to get away from an assailant, or otherwise subdue the assailant non-violently, before the person is allowed to use violence. But at home, a person can attack a presumed, or real, assailant without having to retreat or subdue them non-violently first.
In South Carolina, those Castle doctrine rights are in place when a person is at home, in their vehicle, in a business they own, or in a hotel room, meaning a person has a right to defend themselves if they are staying in a hotel room.
Additionally, police must obtain a warrant before searching and seizing property from a hotel room.
Put together, even if a hotel owner posts the legally-required signs banning guns from their business, people can still bring them into their rooms and keep them there. A person would not be allowed to carry a gun in hotel common areas, though, unless the hotel specifically allowed it.
As South Carolina’s open carry law is new, Crosby said he had to ask more senior law enforcement officials at the State Law Enforcement Division, who advised that the Castle doctrine would apply to hotels.
Hotel and motel guests, Crosby said, “will be allowed to carry from the vehicle to the room, (but) not in the registration area.”
Laura Ford, a spokesperson for Hilton hotels, declined to comment on the law change. Other representatives from major hotel chains did not return requests for comment by press time.
For hotel operators, the clarity will be needed, said Scott Murphy, the sales director for South Bay Inn and Suites in Myrtle Beach.
“We just have to, like they said, clarify the interpretation of having signage and if (the Castle doctrine) supersedes it I guess, I don’t know, that’s one of those gray areas,” he said.
Though, Murphy added, “it makes sense.”
