Santa Barbara County, Goleta Pursuing Creation of Gun Shop Buffer Zones

Santa Barbara County holds 10 firearms retailers, and two of them are in Goleta. One is next door to a preschool at 7344 Hollister Avenue and a flashpoint of contention that reached City Council and beyond. The proximity problem came up on Tuesday at both the Goleta City Council and the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors, with each of them voting to pursue the creation of a 1,000-foot buffer between any two similar businesses — only future, not present, businesses — but the size of the buffer and what exactly it would apply to now lies in the hands of staffers, who are to research and return with reports.

County Supervisors Laura Capps and Joan Hartmann, each representing a slice of Goleta, have had an eye on the alarm bells going off in the city since early August. Led by Ellwood neighbors and parents, the opposition to Goodland Guns moving into a former 7-Eleven next to How We Grow preschool has been cordial but determined. They’ve spoken at the last two city council meetings, expressing their concern the gun store was close to children and a Safe Routes to School Class I bike path and sidewalk. They were even sympathetic to gun shop retailer Dan Ashton, who feels he’s been jerked around by Goleta’s rules.

The county has no rules that separate a preschool from a gun store, either — it had a rule for a 1,000-foot buffer between kindergarten–12th grade schools, but not preschools. Capps’s and Hartmann’s chiefs of staff, Gina Fischer and Chris Henson, respectively, presented the day’s staff report. Henson said they’d asked the planning director to let them know if any firearms permit requests were made as they worked on the new rules, and sure enough, one was made within a couple of weeks. That prompted them to add a temporary moratorium to the proposal on any firearms-business-related approvals of 45 days.

Because conditional-use permits (CUP) include public notice and an appeal period, the county will look at requiring a CUP for future firearms retailers. Gun-related business in homes — described by Planning Director Lisa Plowman as gunsmithing, gun repair, and gun sales — could be prohibited. The county had issued nine such permits, she said, but that didn’t necessarily mean business was transacted in the home; it could take place elsewhere.

Supervisor Steve Lavagnino brought up potential Second Amendment issues, for instance, if the county were to create laws that ended up banning a gun retailer. County Counsel Rachel Van Mullem replied that the 1,000-foot buffer might be reduced, depending on what their mapping showed. The buffer’s “child-serving locations” are described as childcare centers, parks, playgrounds, youth centers, places of worship, religious establishments, and similar places.

Calling himself the “board contrarian on this,” Supervisor Bob Nelson advocated for the status quo, observing that not everyone looked at gun stores negatively. In fact, he said, studies showed that gun violence went down near gun stores, especially in suburban areas. “I understand that we see differently up here on the board,” he said to his colleagues. The Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 to revisit the retail gun buffer on September 22.

The conversation at Goleta City Council Tuesday night was a “study session” during which the council, and public commenters, gave staff their thoughts on myriad options in regulating gun stores more tightly. Under consideration were changes regarding zoning locations, what could be considered “sensitive uses,” and buffer distances and whether they should include residential zones, as the cannabis regulation does. Planner Anne Wells also asked the council to consider use standards like hours of operation or fencing, and business license changes.

Goleta is rectangular in shape, developed as a suburb to Santa Barbara and UC Santa Barbara with large areas of housing tracts and narrow corridors of commercial zoning and larger patches of industrial zones. Any buffer distance established will depend on what’s close to what else, Wells indicated. Other cities’ retail firearms buffers range from 500 to 1,000 feet. Whatever Goleta chooses, it cannot eliminate the ability to acquire firearms, city attorney Isaac Rosen said.

The owner of the gun store in question, Dan Ashton, was there to address the council. He warned that the requirement of a conditional use permit in a liberal town was “a thinly veiled ban” on guns. He was supported by two other speakers. One said she was the only local manufacturer of non-lead bullets when California passed its ban on lead ammunition, selling to police and sheriff’s departments. Another asked the city to help Ashton find another location.

Goleta’s cannabis license update a few years ago had also included buffer zones. While the consequences of a 1,000-foot buffer around any school, place of worship, or other location considered “sensitive” needed to be mapped, the cannabis license provided a template for a 600-foot buffer for sensitive locations and a 100-foot buffer to residences.

Goleta’s zoning underlies the issue at 7344 Hollister. Two preschools had been next door to the address, which until 2023 held a 7-Eleven. Many have noted that the convenience store sold both alcohol and tobacco; noteworthy perhaps, but a preschool is beneath the K-12 threshold. Goleta will be considering a zoning change to the “community commercial” designation, which applies to 7344 Hollister Avenue. Adding security requirements to the firearms business license and public notice of a new application is also under consideration.

Removing gun-shop barriers in industrial zones, an area Ashton had first considered, was worth the time it would take, the council agreed. The zoning change would require both a General Plan Amendment and review by the Planning Commission. Timeliness became a factor, just as it had for the county earlier in the day. A moratorium on new, not existing, firearms licenses was added to staff’s plate.

Councilmember Luz Reyes-Martín said any moratorium, which will return at an upcoming council meeting, would not preclude helping Goodland Guns find a new location, to which Mayor Paula Perotte agreed.