Goleta, California currently has two gun shops operating inside its city limits, which is two too many for some residents. In particular, though, Goodland Guns' recent move to a new location next to a daycare center has caused them to demand changes to the city's zoning laws, which currently treat gun stores no differently than any other retailer.
That will soon be changing, though. On Tuesday, the Goleta City Council unanimously voted in favor of imposing a 45-day moratorium on the opening of any new gun store in town. During that "pause," city officials will be putting together a plan that could make that roadblock permanent.
“It gives us time to look and prepare another ordinance and do it right and do a thorough job,” Mayor Paula Perotte said.
Goleta currently treats firearm and ammunition sellers as general retail businesses. Before this evening, one could choose any eligible commercial location, obtain a business license and open without a public hearing, neighborhood notification or review of its location.
Which is as it should be. Unfortunately, those days are now at an end.
Possible regulations include restrictions on which zoning districts can accommodate gun stores, buffers from schools and childcare facilities, separation requirements between retailers and additional security, operating and business-license standards.
I don't think Goleta needs to put any kind of special restrictions on FFLs, but if the city council is intent on imposing new zoning requirements for gun stores in place, the simplest thing to do would be include FFLs under the same guidelines already imposed on another regulated industry: cannabis.
Under the city's zoning laws, marijuana dispensaries must be at least 600 feet from K–12 schools, 600 feet from any other storefront cannabis retailer, 600 feet from the Goleta Valley Community Center, and 100 feet from residentially zoned parcels. The code does not, however, impose any kind of buffer from day-care centers or youth centers. The space now occupied by Goodland Guns previously housed a 7-Eleven that sold alcohol and tobacco, apparently without inspiring any kind of campaign to create a buffer zone between the business and the preschool.
So, why should a gun store be prohibited from operating near a daycare when Goleta's existing zoning ordinance expressly allows a marijuana dispensary or convenience stores that sell adult products like beer and alcohol to operate next door to one?
It's beyond odd that some residents are apparently cool with their kids playing next to a pot shop or a store where alcohol and cigarettes are sold but flip out over a gun store occupying that same space. Do these folks really think that when the firearms inside Goodland Guns are regularly being discharged, handled on the sidewalk, or handed out to customers in violation of California's draconian gun control laws?
In fact, why aren't California's voluminous laws regulating gun sales enough for these folks? Anyone purchasing a firearm at Goodland Guns has already been vetted by the state and federal government, passed a background check, and twiddled their thumbs for the ten days mandated by lawmakers before picking up their firearm.
Their fears are unreasonable and unwarranted, and Goodland Guns owner Dan Ashton has repeatedly tried explaining this to his critics. The fact that his education has changed very few minds is, to me anyway, evidence of an anti-gun mindset in the city, and one untethered to reality.
It's also worth remembering that Goodland Guns didn't break any rules when it moved next door to the daycare. The city approved the relocation because gun stores were a permitted retail use at the location. If Goleta officials now believe their zoning code should have treated firearm retailers differently, they're free to make that argument going forward. But it's an asinine to treat Goodland Guns as the problem when the business did exactly what the city required of it, and has operated in the city for well over a decade without issue.
I'll be talking with Ashton on Thursday's Bearing Arms Cam & Company about Goleta's new "moratorium", if he's concerned that the city might try to impose new licensing requirements on him since they can't force him out of his current location by revising their zoning laws, and what, if anything, he's doing to protect his business from the anti-gunners's attacks on lawful commerce.
