Fired up: Gun club noise upsets nearby residents | VIDEO | Gwinnett Daily Post

Just a few months ago, Buford resident Gary Nichols could sit out on his back deck and enjoy the peace and quiet. That tranquility, he said, abruptly ended when the 28-lane Georgia Gun Club opened nearby.

The 38,000-square-foot facility, located at 1951 Braselton Highway in Buford, opened earlier this year within eyeshot — and earshot — of neighborhoods, churches and two daycare facilities.

Nichols’ home, situated in Wynfield Point subdivision across Braselton Highway from the gun club, is approximately 900 feet, as the crow flies, from the business. Close enough, Nichols said, to hear gunfire while outside or inside their home.

“It’s very frustrating, it’s very annoying,” Gary’s wife Barbara said. “It’s like explosions. You feel like it’s dynamite. It’s just constant explosions … I’m not living in a war zone. I don’t want to live like that.”

The Georgia Gun Club property, originally slated for development as a shopping center, was zoned C-2 in 2004 — a zoning under which a gun club is a permitted use. According to Gwinnett County Communications Director Joe Sorenson, a special use permit was not required and the 2004 rezoning did not contain any special conditions dealing with noise. County staff, he added, are still trying to address concerns raised by nearby residents.

Georgia Gun Club owner Verne Fowler said he too is investigating the noise issue.

“We believe that we are well within the acceptable levels for state and local ordinances covering noise abatement. To be sure that is the case and in the spirit of being good neighbors, we are paying for a third party local audio engineering firm to conduct independent noise tests,” Fowler said in a released statement.

via Fired up: Gun club noise upsets nearby residents | VIDEO | Gwinnett Daily Post.