By Gordon Dritschilo
THE RUTLAND HERALD
A gunsmith has withdrawn a zoning application to operate a shop on Temple Street due to a public outcry over its location next to Northeast Primary School.
“I feel like I just got kicked in the guts,” Eric Fletcher said on Monday. “When I started this whole thing, it was never, in any form, my intention to cause any distress in the community. With the current climate of things, I understand the concern.”
Fletcher received a home occupation zoning permit dated May 24 for assembly and “largely” but not exclusively online sales of firearms at a Temple Street address abutting the Northeast School driveway.
A photo of the permit and Google map showing the location relative to the school were part of a widely shared social media post over the weekend, with many people in comments sections discussing how to appeal the permit.
Zoning Administrator Andrew Strniste said that by late Monday morning he had at least 25 calls asking about the appeal process, for which he said he was pointing people to the relevant state statutes.
“In regards to myself, I can’t really determine who can and can’t appeal,” he said. “It’s a matter of the Design Review Board who is an interested party.”
The statute states neighboring property owners are interested parties when they can show they might be affected by the use of the property covered by the permit.
Assistant Superintendent Rob Bliss said Monday the Rutland City Schools were preparing an appeal as adjoining landowners.
“Our job is to bring to their attention some things we might find in the general regulations for zoning that might need to be reviewed again,” he said. “That business will inhibit the use of our school.”
Bliss said the permit likely did not take into account that the property is within the 1,000-foot gun safety zone maintained around the school. He said protocols require that they “execute secure the school” if a person with a gun is spotted within that zone. He said this sets off a number of other protocols, including a 911 call placing all responders in the city on alert.
Bliss — who stressed that he had nothing against home occupation businesses — said a customer leaving the shop with a visible firearm could prompt these protocols regardless of their intentions.
Aside from issues specific to firearms, Bliss said they had questions about what sort of shipping traffic the business would bring to a neighborhood that presently has none, but has other pre-existing traffic challenges.
“I don’t know if you’ve seen our pick-up and drop-off hours, but it’s pretty busy there already,” he said.
Fletcher said the backlash was at least in part a misunderstanding of his plans, which did not include what is commonly understood to be a “gun shop.”
“My intention was never to have any inventory or anything in front of a school district,” he said. “That would have been completely irresponsible.”
Fletcher said he recently completed a trade school certification in gunsmithing and hoped to use the Temple Street space as a workshop for occasional repairs and inspections while he looked for a more appropriate spot for a storefront. He said he also needed a space to do business in to complete certain federal certifications.
Fletcher called himself a firm believer in the Second Amendment and said that firearms ownership comes with responsibilities.
“Firearms are a very, very touchy subject, especially with the climate nowadays,” he said. “The very essence of what my business was going to be was going to be safety and education.”
Fletcher said the procedures he would have had to follow to receive and store firearms that he had been working on might have spoken to some of the community concerns. He said he could have tried to use the appeal process to address those concerns, but that he also had learned Monday that the business would have changed the property’s tax and insurance in ways that could double his rent.
Fletcher said he still wants to get his business going, but will have to rethink his plans.
“The initial blowback — that’s nothing that I even in a million years wanted,” he said. “I respect the input from the community. Without them, I have nothing. It’s too early to determine where I’m going to go from here.”
gordon.dritschilo @rutlandherald.com
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