The board's effort to clarify the regulation comes after a Zoning Board of Adjustment showed that the county's land-use ordinance was ambiguous in how it defined private shooting ranges and commercial shooting ranges. The proposed text amendments recommended that indoor and outdoor commercial ranges be a permitted use in all zones except for office-institutional, including the county's four residential categories.
Commissioner Rebecca McCall made a motion to require a special-use permit for ranges in three residential zones and to reduce the hours from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. instead of 8 p.m. "just to make sure in a residential area a commercial range is following the rules they need to follow." Commissioners defeated the motion on a 3-2 vote, with commissioners Daniel Andreotta, David Hill and Michael Edney voting no and chairman Bill Lapsley joining McCall in voting no. By the same vote, commissioners defeated McCall's motion to cut the hours at night from 8 to 6 p.m.