Stationed at his cash register behind a jar of orange foam earplugs, the manager of Get R Gun in Santa Maria doesn’t agree with Santa Barbara County’s newest policy on firearms.
He believes the recent action raises more red flags than the local controversy that triggered it.
“We didn’t see a problem with Goodland Guns,” Luis Catalan Valdez said, recalling headlines about the city of Goleta granting Goodland Guns a permit to operate next to a preschool.
“With the [city] approvals and everything, who are we to say no?” Valdez added.
The county Board of Supervisors’ move to prevent similar instances of gun shop permit approvals near schools and other sensitive uses in unincorporated areas took effect on Sept. 1.
With a 4-1 vote, the board approved an urgent moratorium to temporarily halt gun retailers from obtaining county planning permits, whether they’re for new store proposals or requested expansions of existing storefronts.
‘I, for one, also would have no problem having my kids go to a preschool next to a gun store because I really do believe the best thing for a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.’
—Bob Nelson, 4th District supervisor
The temporary ban will give supervisors time to revise the county’s current retail commercial zoning rules, which essentially don’t differentiate between gun stores and fast food restaurants in terms of permitting hoops to jump through, 5th District Supervisor Steve Lavagnino pointed out.
“So, Wendy’s or a gun store? It’s pretty much [the same],” Lavagnino joked at the meeting, while shrugging.
He voted in favor of adopting both the moratorium and the directive to bring back an ordinance that enforces a 1,000-foot buffer zone between certain buildings—such as schools and places of worship—and gun stores.
“I think if we do this right, there’s a lot of good here,” Lavagnino said. “This just makes sense. It’s not a ban on anything. It is a ‘let’s put it in the right spot.’ It’s just common sense.”
While the proposed county ordinance wouldn’t impact stores within city jurisdictions like Santa Maria’s Get R Gun on South Broadway, Lavagnino identified himself as a patron. He also described the store’s placement across the street from Santa Maria High School as unfortunate.
“I got my gun there, but it’s not where you want your kids to be walking across the street, or looking at that from their school,” Lavagnino said.
“[It’s a] great shop,” 4th District Supervisor Bob Nelson commented.
Nelson was the sole dissenter in the Board of Supervisors’ 4-1 vote.
“You can have good people take a different position on the same issue. … We have a lot of people in our county who see a gun store and think negatively. I represent a lot of people who see a gun store and think positively,” Nelson said. “I, for one, also would have no problem having my kids go to a preschool next to a gun store because I really do believe the best thing for a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.
“There would be a large contingency next door,” he continued, “if there was a mass shooting next to a preschool, of somebody who was lawfully trained and knows how to use guns appropriately to potentially protect my children.”
Of the 15 who participated in public comment at the hearing, only one speaker—county resident Thomas Becker—argued against revising zoning rules for gun shops. The rest included local parents and advocacy group representatives who favored the proposed buffer and temporary moratorium.
Get R Gun manager Valdez wasn’t at the meeting. But he knows what his argument to the board would have been.
“If the issue with gun violence comes down to protecting children, then we should harden school security instead,” Valdez said. “I’d rather see efforts go toward school security than gun control.”
During the Sept. 1 hearing, county staff described the proposed 1,000-foot buffer as consistent with gun shop zoning protocols adopted by other jurisdictions across California, including Los Angeles County.
Spearheaded by 2nd District Supervisor Laura Capps and 3rd District Supervisor Joan Hartmann, the pitch to revise the county’s gun store permitting rules followed recent public outcry over Goodland Guns’ business license to operate next to the Here We Grow Early Learning Center.
The shop scheduled its official grand opening during the first week of September.
“It prompted us to closely examine the county’s own zoning requirements and make sure similar gaps do not exist in unincorporated areas of the county,” Eleanor Gartner, Capps’ deputy chief of staff, told the Sun via email.
Chris Henson, Capps’ chief of staff, described the Goodland Guns controversy as an “immediate catalyst” for the county to explore ways to reform gun shop zoning policy.
“The situation raised an important question for the county: Are our own land use regulations adequate to protect the sensitive uses in the unincorporated areas?” Henson said at the Sept. 1 meeting. “When we looked, we found that firearm sales are generally treated as ordinary retail. A business license is required, but that general requirement does not establish firearm-specific buffers, a discretionary public process, or additional safety or security standards.”
Considering what specific standards the county should require of incoming gun retailers will be part of the board’s discussion on Sept. 22, when the ordinance proposal is scheduled to return.
In the interim, the approved 45-day moratorium on new gun retail permits helps the county “get ahead of a situation” similar to Goleta’s, Supervisor Capps told the Sun.
“It made us take a very serious look quickly and find that we had a similar gap,” Capps said. “I believe that we needed to act quickly so that we could get ahead, … and not have to put community members through the same type of alarm and concern.
“People have different feelings about guns, but there’s no debate over the fact that communities have gone through too much when it comes to gun violence,” she said, “and the trauma it causes. … The psychological impacts.”
Prior to working with Hartmann on their office’s joint pitch, Capps said she received “a lot of personal outreach” through texts and emails asking her to weigh in on Goleta’s zoning issue.
“I never like being in the situation where I say: ‘Oh, that’s not our jurisdiction.’ That never sits well,” Capps said. “But right away that prompted my chief of staff and team to say, ‘Well, let’s look at our laws and find out … what we can do.’ Right away we discovered that we had the same gap we needed to fix.”
Reach Senior Staff Writer Caleb Wiseblood at cwiseblood@santamariasun.com.
