S.F. pulls trigger on gun club lease

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | July 16, 2012 | Neal J. Riley

[Cincinatus' Wife]

The only outdoor shooting range in San Francisco is being evicted by the city after failing to reach a new lease agreement with the Public Utilities Commission.

The Pacific Rod and Gun Club, located on the southwestern shore of Lake Merced, has leased 4 acres on a month-to-month agreement for 78 years, but PUC officials say the sweetheart deal is over.

"We basically said 'we need to bring you into a modern lease,' " said Steve Ritchie, the PUC assistant general manager for water enterprise. "I don't think we intend to negotiate any further."

The two sides failed to agree to new lease terms by the July 9 deadline and the club was given an eviction notice Friday, ending the $4,700-a-month lease.

....Club spokesman Fred Tautenhahn said negotiations with the PUC had been going well and called the eviction notice a "power play."

"We are not going to put our tail between our legs and walk away, we're going to put up a good fight," he said.

The club is open three days a week for six hours a day for shooting, Tautenhahn said. It also offers gun-safety lessons, has been a training ground for Olympic hopefuls, and provides an affordable rental hall for charity events.

"It's not just a bunch of older guys shooting shotguns," he said.

The club has explored finding a new shooting location in the city, but Tautenhahn said that's nearly impossible in San Francisco's political culture.

"Whenever you mention anything about guns, you get a door slammed in your face," he said......

[PittsburghAfterDark]

Call it a center for homosexual Muslims and transgendered Palestinians.

They’ll have approval in the 2 seconds it takes for the rubber stamp to go from ink pad to paper.

[Clump]

If we defended gun clubs and shooting ranged half as forcefully as the left defends Planned Barrenhood clinics we would never lose a shooting range.
The problem is that the Second Amendment only gets a wink here and there from the courts. Actually getting them to defend it is going to take more legislative and judicial victories.

[RC one]

I’ll bet the tax payers of San Fransisco are paying to maintain more than one police shooting range. That’s public property and the public ought to have at least limited access to such ranges. For many decades, we used to shoot at the local sheriff’s range but they recently put an end to that.

[Chode]

wait till they see the cleanup bill...

[caveat emptor]

They've been threatening this for a few years. I live in Canada, but am a U.S. citizen and worked in S.F. a few times 15-20 years ago. In those day's CA and SF were very relaxed about handguns.

Example: A guy was riding a bicycle through Golden Gate Park. Two thugs, unarmed, knocked him off his bike, intending to rob him. He managed to get a pistol out of his backpack, shooting both, killing one but only wounding the other, who was charged with murder - for something like being involved in the commission or a felony during which someone was killed. The cyclist was not charged.