Owner, Greg Hatem
Posted on 05/21/2014 10:54:02 PM PDT by kingattax
North Carolina restaurant The Pit was robbed at gunpoint on Sunday. Normally, local crime stories like this wouldn't merit a Townhall post, but this one is different: The Pit has a "no weapons" sign displayed prominently on its door declaring the restaurant a gun-free zone, and bans patrons from carrying concealed weapons.
Authorities said just before 9 p.m. Sunday, three men wearing hoodies entered the restaurant through the back doors with pistols, and forced several staff members to lie on the floor.
The bandits assaulted two employees during the crime, but they were not seriously injured.
What groups like Everytown for Gun Safety or Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America seem to have an issue grasping is that criminals have no respect for the law by nature of being criminals. Criminals aren't going to be stopped by a "no guns allowed" sign.
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
the Pitt BBQ’s other location in Raleigh was where national gun control advocates Gabby Giffords and Mark Kelly held their meeting to have a “dialogue with gun owners”… to which no gun owners were invited.”
Like a conversation on race with no white people? Leftists are always doing things like that
Kirsten Weeks, a friend who met Hatem when the two worked together at the state Department of Commerce in the late 1990.
RALEIGH — If it’s more than 60 degrees outside, there’s a good chance you’ll find developer Greg Hatem in shorts.
In his downtown Raleigh office, he doesn’t wear shoes.
He speaks Chinese. He owns a pig cooker and drives a Ford pickup truck.
When it comes to his work — buying up old buildings and redeveloping them into offices, stores, apartments and restaurants — Hatem is just as nontraditional. Instead of buying a building and focusing purely on financial return, he’s willing to take the time to renovate the building to its historical glory, and then wait as long as it takes — despite the cost — until the right tenant comes along.
Greg Hatem
BORN: Nov. 20, 1960, in Roanoke Rapids
OCCUPATION: Founder of Raleigh-based Empire Properties
FAMILY: Mother, Marie, of Roanoke Rapids; two brothers, Joe Hatem of Wilmington and Mickey Hatem of Raleigh; sister, Marie Hatem of Carrboro, married to Chris Long; niece, Paula Rosine Long, 17; and nephew, Moe Long, 14; dog, Raleigh, a border collie mix.
EDUCATION: Bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering, N.C. State University; diploma of Chinese studies, Beijing Youth Politics College.
NEXT BIG PROJECT: Three buildings in downtown Durham on East Chapel Hill Street, with plans to turn them into apartments, condos and offices; redeveloping three buildings in Glenwood South, at the former site of David Allen tile and marble, into a mix of restaurants, shops, offices and condos.
ON THE NIGHTSTAND: “The River Runs Black: The Environmental Challenge to China’s Future” by Elizabeth C. Economy.
“It’s incredibly important to have local people who have grown up here, who are willing to commit their time and resources to leave a better legacy, and there’s not a better one in Raleigh than Greg Hatem,” says Margaret Mullen, president of the Downtown Raleigh Alliance.
In the beginning, not everyone saw his vision. The first two bankers he and his two partners approached in 1996, when they wanted to redevelop an old Coca-Cola warehouse on West Street in Raleigh’s warehouse district, thought he was crazy.
Hatem never planned a career as a developer. When he was growing up in Roanoke Rapids, where his family — all of Lebanese decent — moved in the 1930s, his love was photography. But he made his spending money working for his father’s downtown clothing store, Joseph N. Hatem Ltd.
As a student at N.C. State, he took pictures for the school’s paper, The Technician, and United Press International. He studied chemical engineering because it didn’t require a foreign language.
The next year he accompanied his mother to China to visit his father’s brother, a physician named George Hatem. Hatem had been living in China since the 1930s, working for Chairman Mao Zedong and later helping set up a national health-care system.
The trip began what would become a love affair of sorts between Hatem and China. He later would learn Chinese at a school in Beijing and take frequent economic development trips to Asia while working for the Commerce Department in the late 1990s. He even dabbled in some business ventures, including helping create a software development company and building a 21-story office and residential tower.
http://www.empire1792.com/about-news16.html
Owner, Greg Hatem
Well we have to put this down to the poor education system letting inner city kids down - they obviously couldn’t read the sign. How else can you explain why they took a gun into a place were one is not allowed? It’s the Guberment’s fault and someone is due reparations. Yes it’s sarcasm.
Was one of the robbers named Honey Bunny?
I’m shocked. Does this mean that criminals don’t play by the rules?
“No Weapons” = “Rob us. We’re defenseless.”
I never had it. Those that hate objects are morons.
I heard on the radio yesterday that Chipolte restaurants will be posting No Firearms signs shortly..
You forgot the “/sarc/” tag after your first sentence.
ANY place that has a “No Guns Allowed” signs displayed deserves to be robbed. They obviously are advertising that there would be no resistance to any would-be robbers who, probably couldn’t read the sign anyway.
Why in God's name would I endanger myself by walking into a killing field?
"No Guns" signs are invitations to criminals to commit crimes in these establishments without fear of being caught or harmed. When you think about it, EVERY SINGLE PLACE where mass murders have occurred in the last 20+ years have been in "Gun Free" zones.
Wake up America.
But then they would have needed a balcony to go fire it into the air.
Seriously, the patrons should now sue for not being adequately protected since they could not protect themselves.
Karma can be a bitch in real life
Greg Hatem hates guns.
Liberal solution: raise taxes, start a government program to teach criminals to read, obviously these people cannot read the signs prohibiting weapons in these establishments.
Serves them right.
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