Attorney for gun range owner states case before local judge
The future of the Iron City Gun Club rests in the hands of a Washington County judge, who heard legal arguments Thursday morning but did not immediately rule on land-use issues brought before her.
In April, the township zoning officer issued a permit that allowed Jason Doetzer to operate a gun club on property at 920 King Road, Bulger, with certain restrictions. The zoning permit allowed only for the gun range to operate as a club and not as a commercial operation.
Robinson Township residents appealed the issuance of the permit to the local zoning hearing board, which, over the summer, voted unanimously to reverse the zoning officer’s action, calling it a mistake. The residents expressed concerns about safety and noise.
Doetzer’s attorney, Marc D. Daffner, told the judge Thursday, “We need someone wiser than ourselves to tell us if this is a sportsman’s club,” a term that the township zoning ordinance does not define.
“A commercial gun range is not allowed at all in the district,” Gretchen E. Moore, township solicitor, said. “He (Doetzer) violated the permit that was issued.” She also said Doetzer applied for a federal firearms license after he said there would be no “federal firearms activity at this location.”
Harlan S. Stone, the Robinson Township Zoning Hearing Board attorney, said its members found “credible evidence those conditions have been violated. The board found the officers who conducted an undercover operation to be extremely credible.”
Mark Dorsey, Robinson Township’s zoning officer, is also police chief of McDonald Borough.
Doetzer’s claims that there were no retail sales, no gun rental and no gun sales on the property weren’t believable, Stone told Emery. “The zoning hearing board decided he had operated in contravention to the conditions of the permit.”
Daffner disagreed, saying, “This has always been a gun club. The permit was appropriately issued.”
He contended that the sale of paper targets, bottled water on a hot day and ammunition, purchased as part of an undercover investigation, “can be incidental services that go on.” Daffner said it would be unsafe to have marksmen bring cans or an animal carcass to use for target practice or use ammunition packed at home. He claimed Doetzer was never selling or renting firearms at the site, but provides a place for training of law enforcement personnel, and that a federal firearms license does not pertain to sale of water, targets or ammunition.
“All he did was apply for a federal firearms license and request a variance,” Daffner argued. “He’s trying to build membership if he did obtain a variance from the township.”
Four property owners who live downhill from the property in question were in the courtroom, but they did not testify because the judge was hearing only legal arguments.
They said a gun club previously occupied the site, but it shut down for several years. Judy Kramer said her Bulger neighborhood is also zoned to allow the operation of day care centers and churches. Because of the toll road known locally as the Southern Beltway, the area is known as an interchange business development district. A shooting range could only be allowed in an industrial district, not in any other district, the township contends.
“The bullets are a nuisance,” Kramer said. “They are not staying in the range.”
Doetzer has operated an indoor gun range in Collier Township, near Bridgeville, for the past five years. His venture in Robinson Township is a more recent one, dating, he said after the court proceeding, to February.
Last month, Emery ordered Iron City to cease its Robinson Township operations pending her decision on the land-use appeal. Attorneys hope the matter is decided in January.