Tony Gicas

NorthJersey

Each lane will have a help button to alert range officers when a patron needs assistance

WAYNE – The Planning Board unanimously approved a 15-lane shooting range for the Route 23 south building that once housed the popular hamburger restaurant, Fuddruckers, despite concerns from residential neighbors.

Township officials confirmed the vacant, 13,500-square-foot facility lies within the highway commercial zone where a shooting range is considered a permitted use.

The Aug. 28 hearing marked the first and only appearance of Reloaderz NJ LLC before the planning body.

The building briefly served as home to the Epic America diner after Fuddruckers closed in 2014.

The applicant, Reloaderz NJ LLC, has plans to gut the interior and construct a “premiere” state-of-the-art facility that Shawn Crowley, the company’s chief financial officer, said encourages safe firearm handling and allows citizens of Wayne to exercise their Second Amendment rights.

Crowley, a former law enforcement officer, said the 1.6-acre site was “the perfect spot” due to the highway traffic and a perceived need in the area. He said Reloaderz signed a 10-year lease for the property.

The range will be open seven days a week from 8 a.m. until 10 p.m. and employ 15 firearms training certified employees, Crowley said. He and two colleagues operating the range will serve as chief range safety officers, the National Rifle Association’s highest rank at gun ranges.

“We hope to attract safe, law-abiding citizens that will respect state laws and come visit our location to enjoy themselves and learn more about shooting,” he said.

Procedure for patrons will include check in at entry where they will fill out forms and watch a 5-minute safety video. Firearms will be available for rental, Crowley said.

Anyone who arrives with their own firearm will undergo an extensive safety inspection to ensure their weapons are clean and no explosive rounds are entering the facility, said Crowley. He said anyone carrying hollow point bullets will be asked to leave and police will be contacted for repeat offenders.

The largest caliber permitted at the range are .308 rifle rounds but 9mm will serve as the most common, Crowley said.

Town clerk Paul Margiotta said he frequents gun ranges, but has never seen staff inspect firearms and ammunition before entering.

“[Safety] was our number one concern,” Crowley said. “That continues to be at the forefront of our guidelines.”

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Ursula Leo, the applicant’s attorney, said the facility will adhere to safety guidelines required by the Department of Environmental Protection, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the NRA.

The 15 lanes are separated by shooting stalls comprised of AR500 steel, which Crowley called “extremely ballistic” and “the strongest steel you can purchase.”

According to plans, each stall will include a help button which alerts range officers if a customer is in need of assistance or an emergency situation arises.

Regarding noise, Crowley testified at an Aug. 28 hearing that no bullets will exit the building and neighbors will not hear anything louder than “a dog barking in the back yard” or the route 23 traffic noise.

To suppress the sound of gunfire, sound abatement lining the walls and baffles on the roof will be installed as well as acoustical concrete block used to fill the range area. All drywall areas will be reinforced with two layers of sheet rock, Crowley said.

“We will be well below the New Jersey state regulations regarding noise,” Crowley said.

The applicant consulted with Action Target, a Utah-based designer and manufacturer of custom shooting ranges, to develop the plans.

Michael Stilwell, an Action Target territory manager, said the company designed more than 20 ranges in New Jersey over the last five years. As for other ranges, including Gun For Hire in Woodland Park and RTSP in Randolph, Stilwell said the Wayne range will utilize Porous Expanded Polypropylene (PEPP) to absorb the sound of gunfire.

“If you were to go to the other ranges we’ve built locally, you can literally be in the parking lot, put your ear to the door and still not hear gunfire,” Stilwell said.

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However, some nearby residents remain skeptical.

Philip Becker, whose Black Oak Ridge Road property sits directly behind the approved range site, said gunshots were discernible during visits he made to Gun For Hire and RTSB. He likened the sound to a pneumatic nail gun heard from 100 feet away.

"You are dealing with up to 15 shooters simultaneously and the sound could extend well into someone’s property. My expectation is that it’s going to devalue properties certainly, those within earshot," Becker said.

He said his neighbor's living area is about 90 feet from the range's back wall. Becker said that distance is substantially closer than the residential buffer seen at the Randolph and Woodland Park ranges.

Margiotta said an adjacent car wash created more outdoor noise than the Gun For Hire location during his visits to the range.

He advised residents to contact the town if noise levels outside the range facility appear to rise above the 65-decibel restriction included in Wayne’s ordinance.

"They will send county officials to measure decibel levels. And, if they're exceeding those, they're going to have to do something to fix it," Margiotta said.

Township officials said residents have complained about noise emanating from the police departments outdoor shooting range near Barbour Pond.

More than noise, some residents fear the worst, as gun-related suicides have occurred inside several New Jersey ranges.

Last year, two men fatally shot themselves two months apart at Gun For Hire. In 2015, two men killed themselves inside RTSP. Between September 2014 and September 2015, two more men, one a former state corrections officer, fatally shot themselves at Shore Shot Pistol Range Lakewood. In July, a Passaic County Sheriff's officer shot himself in the leg at a Clifton shooting range.

Edgar Jimenez said his parents, who have lived on Sandra Lane since 1991, were unaware of the firing range application until last week, a day before the meeting.

A resident of Ramsey, where residents are divided regarding a 60,000-square-foot range proposing 67 firing stalls, Jimenez said he was disappointed with the level of discourse that preceded the Wayne range's approval.

Even though the Jimenez home at 4 Sandra Lane falls within the usual 200-foot notification area, no notification of residents was mandated since there were no variances in the application process.

“We always have a problem when there’s residential abutting a different zone and that’s what we have here," said Mayor Christopher Vergano. "I guess this is something new for our community. What we’ve attempted to do is to get testimony on the record for the residents that the sound abatement is taking place and that it meets all the criteria established for shooting ranges. I think they’ve done that.”

Email: Gicas@northjersey.com