There is nothing more important than keeping our kids safe.
With that in mind: Goodland Guns is planning to open a storefront next door to a preschool in Goleta.
Here We Grow is located on Hollister, near the Santa Barbara Shores neighborhood and the Ellwood Bluffs. It is the daytime home of lots of young kids, ages infant through kindergarten.
Goodland Guns, which sells, you guessed it, guns — including semi-automatic rifles — is opening a store right next door to the daycare. Not across the street. Not three doors down. (Though that would be unconscionable, too.) Right. Next. Door. There is one fence and one parking lot separating the kids’ playground from a room full of rifles.
With this kind of preposterous decision-making and total disregard for our children’s safety, talk about No Hope 4 Kids.
Moms Are Mobilizing
On Sunday morning, my book club group chat started pinging with the news that Goodland Guns was opening next door to the preschool of choice for many families in the Santa Barbara Shores neighborhood and other parts of Goleta. Two of the women in the book club send their preschoolers — both aged 3 — to Here We Grow.
The moms started making plans, as moms do, and within hours, they had researched zoning laws and permitting processes, planned a meeting with a city councilmember, started an email campaign, and mobilized dozens of other parents in the area to use their brainpower and resources to come up with ways to stop Goodland Guns from opening in the proposed location. (We would rather it not open anywhere in Goleta or Santa Barbara at all, but if it must, how about literally anywhere else? There’s a Goodland Guns on Calle Real, near my house, and while I’m not crazy about it, its neighbors are a gas station and a marijuana store, two places not known for catering to toddlers.)
My friends with children enrolled at Here We Grow also said if the gun store does open, they’ll find another place to send their kids. The lucky parents will have that option. Others won’t, and they’ll have to send their babies, toddlers, preschoolers, and kindergartners to play where nothing but a fence separating the kids from a building full of handguns, rifles, and ammunition. As any parent knows, it’s hard enough to find childcare that’s affordable, convenient, and safe without contending with an actual gun store one lot over. Here We Grow’s business will suffer, too, of course.
The Law Falls Short
As a society, we’ve partly had to accept that the federal government isn’t going to do much right now about gun control anytime soon. I realize that’s a cynical thing to say, and it’s one of the saddest parts of living in America, but it’s true. The federal Gun Free School Zones Act prohibits firearms within 1,000 feet of K-12 schools (not, notably, preschools or daycares), but it exempts private property that’s not on school grounds, such as a licensed gun dealer’s storefront.
If Sandy Hook and Uvalde couldn’t get lawmakers to put more stringent, more common-sense federal gun restrictions in place, I’m not sure what will. There are groups and individuals doing everything they can to force the government to reform gun laws, and hopefully that will be successful in the future. But in the meantime, it’s up to local governments and the consciences and common sense of people and businesses to protect the lives and safety of our sons and daughters.
Just Because It’s Legal Doesn’t Mean It’s Right
I’m not an expert on the ins and outs of Goleta’s city council or Santa Barbara County’s zoning laws — although, as a California attorney who currently works as a writer covering data-driven housing trends for Redfin, maybe I should be — but I do know that somehow, it is legal for Goodland Guns to open right next door to Here We Grow preschool. Of course, it shouldn’t be. But there are no local zoning laws prohibiting a firearms dealer from operating right next to a day care.
We should expect more from our local government, from our zoning laws, from the Goleta City Council, from the Santa Barbara County supervisors, and from the state government. This is California, after all. I’m not saying it’s only liberal states that should protect their children (and adults) with common-sense gun regulations, but it’s a political reality that blue places are more likely to do so than red places — and people factor in politics when choosing where to live.
So: Our zoning laws should not allow a firearms dealer to be located next door to a preschool. I can’t believe I’m even writing that sentence. It’s so obvious I feel like I just failed a persuasive writing assignment.
The other thing that’s nonsensical: A landlord renting a building to a gun retailer, knowing full well a preschool is operating one property over. They couldn’t have rented it to a restaurant? A nail salon? A dentist? Literally any other business? Leasing to a gun dealer at that location is unconscionable.
My friend Dan Mizrahi, whose daughter goes to Here We Grow, sent me a text earlier introducing another angle: “From a public health perspective, introducing more firearms into a strained healthcare infrastructure is a dangerous catalyst for poor community outcomes. As a physician practicing in Santa Barbara and Goleta, I urge us to recognize that more guns inevitably lead to higher rates of violent crime and accidental injuries. One could argue ‘guns aren’t the problem,’ but they definitely don’t help — and certainly not next to a daycare.”
There’s Still Time
Maybe parents will roar loudly enough to stop Goodland Guns from opening next door to their kids’ preschool. Maybe an attorney will magically find a winning argument. Maybe the city council will find a loophole and block the business. Maybe there’s still time to appeal the permit that was granted to the gun retailer.
Maybe it won’t work, and Goodland Guns will open its doors next to Here We Grow, and we’ll all feel sick knowing that our federal, state, and local laws allowed that to happen. Our children deserve better than a chain-link fence between their playground and a gun store.
Some issues aren’t partisan, they’re parental. This is one of them. We can do better.
Correction: The school, Here We Grow, was formerly known as Hope 4 Kids Early Learning, which was the name used in the original version of this Voice.
