Redwood City temporarily bans sale of guns

The urgency ordinance came in response to inquiries made to the city by two separate retailers seeking to establish shops, one at 2135 Roosevelt Ave. and the other at 648 El Camino Real.

The city doesn’t currently have an ordinance in place regulating the sale of firearms or ammunition, allowing firearm shops to be permitted within any commercial or mixed-use area including those near schools, libraries and other sensitive uses. But following a review, staff said they believe no other authorized retailers sell firearms within city limits.

If the council moves forward with supporting a moratorium on gun sales, staff would then study potential regulations including: restrictions on where guns can be sold, as done with sex and cannabis shops; health and safety standards for gun shops; specialized treatment for stores that largely sell guns and ammunition versus those that offer the products as a small portion of their merchandise; requiring a conditional use permit for those seeking to establish a new gun store or sell firearms and ammunition; and requiring background checks for license holders and employees of gun shops.

Community response to the proposal was split during the meeting with about half of public speakers saying they support the urgency ordnance while the other half encouraged the council to vote against the measure.

Those against the measure argue it would infringe on the public’s Second Amendment rights that protect a citizen’s ability to bear arms. Maria Rutenburg, a lawyer and the owner of one of the plazas where an applicant was seeking to locate a gun shop, cautioned the council against enacting the ordinance, noting the Supreme Court has sided with Second Amendment advocates in recent years.

“This is a big deal and we’re not going to let it go so I want you to really pay attention to the standards,” Rutenburg said about legal backing for approving the ordinance. “When you’re dealing with something like this and saying you have an emergency to do something, the mere application of someone to have a gun shop is not an emergency, you cannot use it to ban our Second Amendment.”

But others argued gun violence is an emergency. Mayor Giselle Hale said she stood by staff’s legal findings after reading through the ordinance and noted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute for Health have recently found that the number one cause of death for children ages 1 to 19 is guns.

“We’re not here to debate the Second Amendment, we’re not. We’re here to talk about where can we place this use in the city,” Hale said. “This is a land use issue.”

Councilmembers largely agreed, each noting the city was not voting on banning firearm sales in the city altogether. Instead, the city would spend up to two years studying the issue and conducting public outreach. Both councilmembers Alicia Aguirre and Diane Howard noted the city took similar measures when considering where cannabis shops could be located, a process Howard noted that also took about two years. Doing so ensured one neighborhood wasn’t more affected than others, Aguirre said.

“The issue before us isn’t about prohibiting them,” Gee said. “It’s about where they can be in a reasonable manner and I want to take the time to study that and I want to see the data.”

Councilmember Elmer Martinez Saballos said he was interested in learning more about the types of regulations the city could enact on internal practices of businesses such as gun storage policies to prevent grab-and-runs. Councilmember Lissette Espinoza Garnica said the city should take its time fully assessing such a sensitive issue that could have unintended consequences.

Joining those who spoke in favor of the ordinance was Tina Mercer, principal of Roosevelt Elementary School. Despite federal policies prohibiting guns within 1,000 feet of school campuses, the regulation makes exceptions for firearm stores meaning the campus could sit about 500 feet away from a gun shop if located in Roosevelt Plaza.

Like adult shops and cannabis stores, Mercer advocated for banning gun retailers near school sites. Allowing the sale of firearms near schools, she said, would send a bad message to students who, like students across the nation, practice live shooter drills in response to the growing number of on-campus shootings in recent history.

“The guns themselves may not be illegal any more than strip clubs, alcohol and tobacco but that doesn’t mean it should be in a strip mall that close to the school,” Mercer said. “What message would it send for us to do lockdown drills when guns are being sold almost right across the street?”

sierra@smdailyjournal.com

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