SIMI VALLEY : Private Firm to Open Shooting Range

After four years of opposition and delays, the Simi Valley City Council has agreed to allow a private company to open a shooting range that could save the Police Department up to $25,000 a year.

The city also agreed to change its development code to permit the shooting gallery to operate in a warehouse on Easy Street on the city’s west end.

Shooter’s Paradise, an Oxnard-based company, will operate the range, which is scheduled to open in about six months.

Company President George Rice said he plans to equip the range with a classroom, gun shop and nine shooting lanes.

The city agreed to pay the range about $100,000 a year to provide shooting facilities for the Police Department. Shooter’s Paradise will also be open to the public.

The range will save the city an estimated $25,000 a year in overtime and travel costs that it pays to the department’s 110 officers to drive to ranges in Camarillo and Ventura.

City officials began trying to open a range in 1990, after the city’s range at the former Corriganville Ranch was shut down.

After several proposals for outdoor sites were opposed by residents who did not want a shooting range in their neighborhoods, the city began seeking a contractor who would open an indoor range.

Councilwoman Sandi Webb, an avid shooter and member of the National Rifle Assn., said she is eager to try out her 22-Ruger at the range.

“We’ve been waiting for this for a long time,” Webb said. “I’d like to be the first one to shoot.”