By Khalida Sarwari
A spirited debate surrounding the opening of a gun store in Los Gatos has spilled over to the neighboring city of Saratoga. Over the past few weeks, Saratogans have been involved in a war of words that was sparked after a citizen group in that town brought forward a petition to revoke the store’s permit.
The group, Stop the Gun Shop, started a petition on Jan. 12 to express its opposition to the late-December opening of Templar Sports at 611 University Ave. in Los Gatos.
One member of the group who was part of the winning team in last year’s Saratoga’s Got Talent approached Rishi Kumar, who runs the community program, to notify others about the petition on a Google group for Saratogans that Kumar moderates. Kumar agreed, thinking that it would get the Saratoga community engaged and talking about an issue that could potentially affect them. He compared it to the plastic bags ban and medical marijuana issues in San Jose; although those issues didn’t directly affect the residents of Saratoga, the city council decided they were important to address.
“My viewpoint is very simple,” Kumar said. “There are changes happening in our neighboring towns. We’re all global citizens and it starts at a local level. If you don’t do the due diligence that is needed on local issues, it comes back later to haunt us.”
After Kumar brought it to the attention of the Saratoga community, a number of Saratogans signed the petition, he said. As of Feb. 13, nearly 800 signatures had been collected, with 390 from Los Gatos, 320 undeclared, 37 from Monte Sereno and 22 from Saratoga. Eventually, the Stop the Gun Shop group will present the petition to the Los Gatos Town Council.
Kumar said he has signed the petition, because having a gun shop in nearby Los Gatos goes against his beliefs, which he says are closely aligned with Mohandas Gandhi’s views on non-violence.
But, personal views aside, Kumar said he brought up the topic in the Google group hoping for a cordial discussion. After a week of what Kumar deemed “acrimonious” back-and-forth exchanges between a handful of members of the community, Kumar decided it would be best to move the discussion to a different group that’s focused on politics.
“The bottom line is, it divided us,” he said.
Kumar now wants the Saratoga City Council to start a dialogue about guns and come up with a plan for the city.
Councilman Chuck Page took part in the Google group discussions and hinted that the council would possibly be discussing retail gun stores “in the near future.” The council, however, does not have plans to discuss the subject anytime in the next five months.
But, when the time for that discussion comes, Page suggested that it would best serve Saratoga to place a moratorium on allowing any gun establishments in order to give the city time to study the issue.
According to the current municipal code, any establishment that chooses to sell firearms is not required to apply for a conditional-use permit. The odds of a unique and specialized business such as a gun shop opening in Saratoga is “very remote,” Page said.
“But if we were to discuss it, what would probably happen is we’d have a public hearing–if it was determined it was something worth looking into,” he said.
The council would have to consider whether a gun shop in the city would lead to an increase in crime or place a heavy burden on the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office. The moratorium process to do the study would be about two years, Page said.
“The hard thing is to separate emotions from fact–it’s hard to do, but you have to weigh that in, too,” he said. “I think it’s a matter of policing against the bad stuff and making sure that the legal stuff has the right rules around it that people who have proven to be trustworthy can acquire them.”
The Los Gatos Town Council decided to go the moratorium route as well. On Feb. 11, before a crowd of about 400 people, the council took steps toward pursuing an emergency moratorium that would temporarily stop any new firearms dealers from opening while the town develops an ordinance putting limits on gun sales. The action was prompted by a backlash from anti-gun town residents that was countered by Templar supporters. The opening of Templar has divided the Los Gatos community, with some wondering why a gun store could be allowed to open without any public comment.
The moratorium would not apply retroactively to Templar, because it could expose Los Gatos to litigation and make the moratorium invalid.
The emergency moratorium is expected to be approved at the Los Gatos council meeting on March 4.
No gun store is coming to Saratoga, but folks are talking about it
