Voters in Newcastle passed a moratorium Monday night that will temporarily ban any applications for new gun stores, after the town realized it has no rules to prevent licensed firearm dealers from seeking to open near schools.
The 180-day moratorium is meant to give local officials time to come up with new zoning regulations to prevent that from happening.
The moratorium comes after the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms received an application for a firearm dealership license in Newcastle and asked the town in April whether it had any zoning limits on the sale of guns near schools, according to Planning Board Chair Ben Frey.
Upon review, town staff learned that there were no such local restrictions, let alone federal or state ones, Frey said.
So, the town asked voters to consider a 180-day moratorium on any applications from businesses to buy, sell or trade firearms, to provide time for officials to approve new zoning regulations.
Residents voted 71-8 to pass the moratorium during a special town meeting.
“I want to be clear, this is not about prohibiting firearm sales; it’s about whether or not this community desires regulations around firearm sales, specifically in close proximity to schools. That is the crux of the question on the agenda this evening,” Frey said at the meeting.
During a short discussion before the vote, one attendee spoke in favor of the moratorium. Jeff Burroughs, the head of school at Lincoln Academy, said it’s important for the town to have a conversation about what it should do about firearm sales near schools.
Lincoln Academy “is the only school right now affected by this, and I think it’s an important conversation to have,” Burroughs said. “So this pause allows the opportunity for folks to come to us, the citizens, and say ‘here’s what we suggest,’ and we’ll all get back together and vote on it again.”
Another resident, Mary Lou Daxland, spoke out against the moratorium at Monday night’s meeting, claiming that it violates state law. However, the town attorney clarified that while municipalities cannot regulate the use of firearms under state law, they can regulate where they are sold.
Newcastle isn’t the only midcoast town to regulate firearms in the last few months. Wiscasset is considering an ordinance preventing the discharge of firearms near an elementary school and a downtown area where people both hunt and recreate.
Jules Walkup is a Report for America corps member. Additional support for this reporting is provided by BDN readers.
