Booze and bullets? Georgia firing range gets OK to serve alcohol

OFF THE WIRE

By Sevil Omer, NBC News

Owners of a Georgia gun shop have received the go-ahead from local officials to serve alcohol at a proposed indoor firing range, riling one neighbor who says booze with bullets is a bad mix.
Kristina Brown and her husband own the Lakeside Guns Shop in Acworth, Ga., and are building a $3.5 million gun range in nearby Powder Springs, north of downtown Atlanta, according to WSB-TV in Atlanta.
The Powder Springs City Council voted 4-1 Monday to approve their application for a permit to serve alcohol in a lounge at The Governor’s Club, according to WSB-TV.
Brown’s new business plan has upset at least one area resident.
"I mean, that's just stupid," Traci Hart, a mother of three, told WSBT. "We don't need drunk people running around in and out of the neighborhood.”
Brown said Georgia law now allows people with gun permits to carry firearms into businesses that serve alcohol. She noted that her gun club is "taking it even a step further," according to WSB-TV.
Governor’s Club customers who order alcoholic beverages at the bar will have their identification flagged and won't be allowed to return to the firing range, Brown told WSB-TV.
The Browns' idea might be more about advertising, said Paul Bastean, a sergeant with the Lake St. Louis Police Department and owner of Ultimate Defense, a firing range and training center north of St. Louis.
“There’s a mess of beer-baiting bullet shops scattered across the South,” Bastean told NBC News. “While it’s not a ridiculously new concept, the whole idea of shooting guns and having ammo with booze is just crazy, a bad, bad idea.”
Bastean speculated that the Governer's Club owners were hoping to attract more business to their bar by linking it to the adjacent firing range.
“They have a pretty elaborate building and business," Bastean said, adding, "I think they may be wanting to draw more people in by saying beer and bullets at the firing range, than there is a bar next door to the gun club."
The Browns told local media they hoped to open The Governor's Club in late December.