Katie May
LETHBRIDGE HERALD
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The city of Lethbridge has shut down a local shooting range over stray bullet concerns. The Fish and Game Association's shooting range in Peenaquim Park closed after a Feb. 9 meeting between city administration and the Fish and Game Society wherein city officials said they had reason to believe, based on information from the Lethbridge regional police, that rifle bullets found in a northside residential area may have been fired from the range.
City council wasn't informed of the decision to close the range before it happened, but the administration plans to privately fill aldermen in at council's next meeting on Tuesday so they can decide how long the range should be closed. The matter isn't scheduled for public debate at council, but the Lethbridge Fish and Game Association has planned a public meeting for Feb. 23 to discuss the range's future.
Range manager Allan Friesen told the Lethbridge Herald that the association would not comment about the closure until it is "fully aware of the city's position."
In a Feb. 10 memo to members, Friesen encouraged the public to express their opinions about the closure and noted that the city has been supportive of the range in the past. The association was working with the city to find a new location for the shooting range, farther from residential areas, he wrote.
"Lethbridge has historically supported the rights of gun owners and the shooting sports. Your voices will be very important once again," the memo reads.
It's not the first time the city has shut down the shooting range property, which it leases to the Fish and Game Association. The most recent prior closure happened in April 2010, after a stray bullet hit a minivan in a northside neighbourhood. The range re-opened about three weeks later after police determined the bullet in question could not have reasonably been fired from the range.
Repeated temporary closures of the range give local shooters a bad name, according to a Fish and Game range member.
"The range is treated as guilty until proven innocent, and time and again it's been shown that the users of the range haven't been at fault," said Lethbridge resident Nicholas Burnham, who's been a range member for about four years.
"The fact that the range keeps getting shut down makes people think that we're the ones causing the problems when it's really not the responsible users who are using the range - it's the people that are out in the countryside shooting."
Burnham said he understands why the city feels the need to close the range in the interest of public safety before doing a full investigation, but he doesn't agree with the decision and said the city should have publicly announced the shutdown right away to give the public a chance to speak up.
The Fish and Game Association meeting on the matter is scheduled for 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 23 at the association's hut in Kinsmen Park on the corner of 9 Avenue and 10 Street South.