Today is the day that High Bridge Arms, Inc.'s permit hearing happens. Let's quickly catch you up to speed. San Francisco only has one gun shop. It's on Mission near Valencia. And it's been strictly export/import for the last year, meaning that the storefront was empty and not permitted for retail sales. Earlier this year the gun shop manager, Steven Alcairo, was attempting to remodel the store and get a zoning permit so he could reopen the gun shop by the end of the year. Surrounding business have mixed feelings, the Northwest Bernal Alliance neighborhood group does not. They shot off an email campaign to get folks to rally against the gun shop, saying that a neighborhood with families and kids should have a more family-friendly retail store, not a gun shop. Today Alcairo is applying for a zoning permit so that the store can go back to what it had been doing for five decades - sell guns. "Our store has been a member of this community longer than most neighbors who live here," Alcairo said. "It doesn't make sense to us that a small percentage of them are suddenly upset that we're here and want us to leave." Alcairo told the Chronicle. "If anything, we're bringing cops into the neighborhood."
Supervisor David Campos, who reps the neighborhood, said he sees both points of view. "Every community needs to decide for itself what makes sense," Campos said. "And what I hear from a lot of people is, they would rather not have this business here. The fact that it's been there for a while doesn't mean that it's the right thing for the community today." Alcairo also noted that to buy a gun, a customer must go through a background check, a test and fingerprint check with the U.S. Department of Justice.
· NIMBYs Oppose Re-Opening of SF's Only Gun Shop [Curbed SF]
· S.F. groups mobilize to deny permit to gun shop [SF Gate]
· The City’s Only Gun Shop Fights to Reopen [Mission Local]
· North West Bernal Alliance [NWBA]
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