Healdsburg poised to be second Sonoma County city to restrict gun sales

Healdsburg has advanced a proposal to ban the sale of guns in its downtown core and restrict them throughout the rest of city, a decision supporters applauded as a common-sense control on the location of firearm retailers.

The City Council voted 5-0 Tuesday to permanently enforce a moratorium on gun sales enacted late last year. In the interim, the city studied the issue and concluded that it had the backing of residents and legal authority to pursue an ordinance that does not conflict with state or federal laws.

“We’re looking at our core of our town and trying to make sense of what we can do to keep things a certain way and also to preserve the safety and livelihood,” Mayor Brigette Mansell said at Tuesday’s council meeting. “We have to be civil and we have to understand what our parameters are for this city. And we have to create a place for someone in this town to have a business.”

The city presently has no retail businesses that sell guns. City staff stated it was not familiar with any previously existing stand-alone gun outlets, though firearms were traditionally available through a hardware store located in the downtown plaza and at a sporting goods store previously located in the Mitchell Shopping Center two blocks north of the plaza, each without the need for separate permits.

If the permanent ban is affirmed in a second council vote later this month, it would offer permits to gun shops only in commercial, mixed-use and industrial areas on the city’s edges. No shops would be allowed within 500 feet of schools, parks and churches, among other defined sensitive areas, and the floor space for firearms will not be able to exceed 5 percent of the building’s square-footage.

Retailers selling sporting goods or hardware would not be permitted to carry firearms in the city center. The new ban also will apply to BB and pellet guns, as well as air-based paintball equipment.

Scott Gabaldon, a Windsor man who had intended to open a gun retailer in the downtown area before Tuesday’s decision effectively shut the door on the plan, said he was disappointed by the council’s vote. However, the ordinance still allows him to open a store for sportsman and gun safety training within city limits.

“The way they’ve done it now, I can have a gun store, so I’ll find another spot and go from there,” said Gabaldon, a general contractor who grew up in Healdsburg. “I’m not happy with the decision, but I can still do it. So the people of Healdsburg and north county will still have a place to go for hunting, camping and fishing supplies in my store.”

The ordinance would make Healdsburg, a popular Wine Country destination, the second city in Sonoma County that requires a conditional use permit for gun sales. Rohnert Park adopted a similar ordinance in 1991. All other Sonoma County cities allow firearm sales in commercially zoned districts.

A handful of residents spoke during the public hearing to voice their support for the ban. They urged the council to act, citing the prevalence of gun violence in the United States and the wide availability of guns at firearms retailers elsewhere.

“What do we want to have in this city? What would improve this city? What are we missing,” said Robert Neuse, who called for the creation of more after-school spots for children and teens. “Firearms sales? Not so much. People can get firearms someplace else if they absolutely insist.”

The issue first bubbled up last December after Gabaldon planned to become a firearms dealer by converting a vacant 11,000-square-foot former office space between the Raven Performing Arts Theater and Toy Chest toy store one block from the downtown plaza. City code permitted gun sales in the area, but officials brought the issue to the council for review and the emergency ordinance was passed to temporarily block the business.

“I already had approval and a permit and then they pulled the plug on it,” Gabaldon said, adding he believes he probably had grounds to sue the city over its prior action. “They changed the laws in the middle of the game. I didn’t set the rules of what was going on in Healdsburg, they did.”

The gun sale ban follows a pair of other recently enacted measures or proposals focused on commercial activity in downtown.

Last month, the City Council directed staff to write an ordinance that will ban future hotels in downtown. That move followed a council ordinance unanimously passed in August 2017 that capped the number of new wine tasting rooms downtown.

The gun sales measure presented Councilman Joe Naujokas with what he called a “tough” decision.

“I’ve been hearing people say that we’re a ‘wine-and-dine’ town and there’s no room … for guns,” he said. “We’re also a ‘grit-and-grime’ town, and that part of our history is still very much here and very much a part of what Healdsburg is.”

Naujokas wondered about the possibility of allowing gun sales at a sporting good retailer should one move back into the Mitchell Shopping Center.

But Mansell, a public school teacher, said she saw no need for such a loophole. She said that the proposed ordinance would allow ample space for gun retailers elsewhere in the city. Staff members in their report cited roughly 50 spots in the permitted zones.

“Right now, in 2018, I’m not comfortable with the city of Healdsburg not doing something different, because I don’t think that the central issue of our core - the commercial district - should have gun sales,” she said. “I don’t think there’s a middle ground. You have to make a decision: Do you want to create certain ways for us to protect and look at use of land, and I think this is a fair response.”

Council members Shaun McCaffery and Leah Gold backed the concept, sealing a majority in favor of the proposal. Vice Mayor David Hagele and Naujokas signed on, dropped their call to decrease the buffer zone around gun outlets outside of downtown to ?250 feet.

Gabaldon, a pistol instructor, said he now aims to open his store in a suitable site by Thanksgiving. He said he hopes he can help break down fears about guns by emphasizing training and expanding general knowledge about firearms.

“One of the things I want to do is bridge the gap, of people on the far right who think they have a right to do whatever they want, and people on the left who think we shouldn’t have guns at all,” he said. “If I can bridge the gap, I think I’ll have done my part.”

You can reach Staff Writer Kevin Fixler at 707-521-5336 or at kevin.fixler@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @kfixler.