A popular San Luis Obispo County shooting range is at risk of closing after a government audit found the group running the facility had mismanaged the business, completed unapproved renovations and owes nearly $400,000 to the state.
The shooting range, located on Highway 1 between San Luis Obispo and Morro Bay, is operated by the San Luis Obispo Sportsmen’s Association, a membership group made up of shooting enthusiasts.
The group has been involved with the facility since it opened in 1986, but come December it may no longer be in charge, and it remains to be seen whether the range can continue operating.
That’s because a March audit report by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, which owns the land where the shooting range is located, found several violations of the two contracts it has with the association, including undercharging for use, taking payments outside the Fish and Wildlife system and renovating the premises without authorization in ways that did not comply with the American Disabilities Act.
The financial audit and a separate evaluation of the renovations was prompted after Fish and Wildlife learned of possible contract violations in 2021, according to a letter sent to the Sportsmen’s Association on March 11.
California Fish and Wildlife spokesperson Krysten Kellum told The Tribune that the association failed to correct some violations “despite CDFW’s best efforts and regular communication.”
She said the agency will not renew the association’s contract, which ends on Dec. 31, and will seek proposals for a new contractor in the near future.
For its part, the Sportsmen’s Association disagrees that it owes any money and said it had been frustrated by bureaucracy while trying to maintain a facility that for years has provided training and a safe environment for recreational shooting.
“We were not intentionally trying to violate the contract,” Julia Soto, general manager of the Sportsmen’s Association, told The Tribune. “There were a couple poor decisions, there was not thinking it through, but no ill intent, none whatsoever. Just trying to build the best range we can and keep it operating.”
How does the cash flow at the shooting range work?
The Sportsmen’s Association facility is on an 460-acre property that includes a variety of shooting venues for different firearms including pistols, rifles and shotguns, plus archery as well, along with an office and other buildings, the association’s brochure says. According to Fish and Wildlife, the property is 448 acres.
It had around 1,300 members who pay dues to use the ranges at discounted rates. It’s also open to the general public for day use, hosts shooting competitions and is even used by California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation employees under a longtime agreement.
The Sportsmen’s Association has been affiliated with the range for decades, but it didn’t take over management until 2018, when it signed its first contract with Fish and Wildlife. Before that, the range was operated by the Central California Firearms Education Foundation, an organization made up of several firearms groups including the Sportsmen’s Association, Kellum said. Soto said the foundation was made up of three groups that were under the umbrella of the Sportsmen’s Association.
At the time, Soto said, the foundation operated the range under a three-page memorandum of understanding with Fish and Wildlife.
That memorandum laid out very general rules, requiring the foundation to provide services such as firearm shooting, archery and safety education. That memorandum also stated the foundation had to get written approval from the state prior to any renovations. It stated that the organization could collect fees and sell shooting supplies but did not set specific items or prices that the shooting range could charge.
The foundation had operated under those guidelines for many years until 2018, when the groups consolidated into the Sportsmen’s Association and entered into a formal $2.48 million contract with Fish and Wildlife.
The 45-page contract was much more detailed than the previous memorandum of understanding, records showed, and for the first time laid out specific fees the association was allowed to charge. A subsequent $1.98 million contract in 2022 covered costs through 2024 with similar details.
Because California law prohibits private sales on state land, the association would run payments through a Fish and Wildlife system. Money from sales would then go into a Fish and Wildlife account. All sales at the range were required to be run through this system.
The association would then send an invoice to Fish and Wildlife that had a line item for each sale and operational cost, like salaries, and the agency would reimburse the association each month. The contract allotment acted as the budget and was based on prior use of the facility, so the association could not be reimbursed more than than the agreed upon amount per contract period.
Shooting range incorrectly collected membership dues, undercharged fees
At the time of the audit, annual membership fees were $100, five-year fees were $300 and lifetime memberships were $900. The payments had been collected by cash or check, Soto said.
A membership allowed access to shooting clubs and discounted day-use rates, she said, adding that the practice had been around since the 1980s.
The association took payments for membership fees outside the required accounting system because those fees were not on the approved list of transactions, records show, and as a result were not an option in the system.
The audit shows the association collected a total of $169,437 in membership fees from 2020 through June 6, 2023. Membership dues for 2024 were not listed in the audit.
Because Fish and Wildlife did not approve memberships or the discounted day use rates that were advertised to come with it, there was no way to charge the discounted rates in the payment system. Members were instead charged youth rates, the audit and Soto confirmed.
For example, the Delta Long Range Match Fee, which allowed people with long-range rifles to shoot on an appropriate site, was $10 for youth and $20 for adults and day use of a type of shotgun was $10 for youth and $15 for adults in 2024. To get their discount, members would be charged the youth fees.
In addition to substituting youth charges for adult customers in records, in 2023, the Sportsmen’s Association also undercharged member rifle and pistol day use fees, records show.
The Sportsmen’s Association was supposed to charge $10 for youth and $20 for adults, but it charged only $5 for both, records show. That variance alone was worth $50,425 in one year.
Law enforcement members were also allowed to shoot for free when in uniform, the audit said. Law enforcement visits were not tracked unless the officer called ahead, the audit said. Soto told The Tribune this was a practice that the association had always done to show its appreciation for law enforcement.
Another problem occurred with the association’s agreement with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
The association entered into contracts with CDCR — providing access to correctional deputies from the California Men’s Colony — without permission from Fish and Wildlife. Soto said CDCR wanted to use the range more regularly than other law enforcement agencies, which is why it entered a contract.
Prior to the audit, CDCR paid a total of $60,516 for its staff to be able to train at the gun range. But like the membership dues, these payments were taken outside of the Fish and Wildlife accounting system, the audit said.
Soto said the association entered the first contract with CDCR in 2014 — five years before she began her position as general manager. When it came time to renew the contract, Soto said, she renewed it.
“I was simply not aware that (Fish and Wildlife) had to be involved in that, because it was just something that had been happening for so long. I never questioned it,” she said.
Now, all told Fish and Wildlife is asking the Sportsmen’s Association to pay about $386,966 to make up for the variances caused by the membership dues and CDCR payments that were paid outside the system, and the use of discounted youth rates.
Soto said the income from membership dues and the CDCR were not reimbursed by Fish and Wildlife because those payments went straight into the association’s general account. She said she did report the amounts as “other income” when she turned in invoices.
According to an invoice reviewed by The Tribune, the amount in “other income” was subtracted from the net cost reported by the association to Fish and Wildlife.
She added that it doesn’t make sense for the association to pay Fish and Wildlife for the variances because that money was never collected by the association and, to be in line with the contract, the agency would reimburse the association after they paid the variance anyway.
According to Kellum, the Sportmen’s Association maxed out its budget in both contracts and, as of Monday, had not paid any of the variances.
“We are working on getting the latest information regarding the $386K in variances,” she said in an email.
The association stopped honoring and selling memberships in April, Soto said.
Shooting range allowed people to live on range
The audit also noted other issues with how the shooting range property was being used.
Under the current contract, one employee may live in the residential house on the property if they enter a housing lease with Fish and Wildlife.
But in 2023, a Fish and Wildlife staff member visited the range and found multiple people living in the home who did not have a lease agreement with the agency. Those occupants were evicted, the agency said.
Soto said she was told Fish and Wildlife was going to draft up a lease for the staff member, but that the lease was never received by the staff member or the association.
Also in 2023, the agency found the association was letting people live in trailers on the back range of the property, which has several shooting venues. Soto said the people were doing work on the range and that the director of the back range allowed them to camp out.
“It used to not be a big deal,” she said.
One person who lived in a fifth-wheel trailer on the back range said he thought he could live there to provide security, the audit said.
Soto objected to the agency requiring the man to leave, she said, because the range had instances where it had been clear someone was coming onto the property when they shouldn’t be, so the association wanted security there.
People were also living on the muzzleloader range, which is in the back range, in a trailer that took two weeks for the association to remove, the audit said. A muzzleloader is a firearm that shoots with gun powder.
Soto said the association did not collect money from anyone who at lived on the property at any point.
The agency also found the association conducted prescribed burns without permission and allowed CDCR staff to shoot on Tuesdays — a specified maintenance “no shoot” day. Soto said the association only let CDCR shoot on Tuesdays every once in a while at their request.
The Sportsmen’s Association also had not provided an operations plan or an environmental stewardship plan nor conducted lead abatement or clean-up on the property in violation of the current contract as of March.
Shooting range did unauthorized renovations: ‘We have always just fixed it’
The final area of violations identified in the audit involved unauthorized renovations on the property.
Along with the financial audit, Fish and Wildlife conducted a separate evaluation of the physical property and found that renovations to the long-range office building — which were not authorized — did not comply with ADA and as of March, still had not been in compliance.
According to Soto, the renovations to the office building were needed because the building and its steps were “falling apart.” The renovations included adding a new back deck that has stairs leading up to the entry but no ramp.
Other unauthorized work included surfacing an access road on the back range in 2020.
The association had done similar unauthorized work between 2008 and 2015 and was forced to remove the materials, the audit said, so the association knew it could not surface roads without permission.
During the investigation, Fish and Wildlife also found the association used unknown construction materials to build a berm between shooting ranges.
Berms are large rows of piled up dirt, similar in shape to a small hill, that create a safety barrier between two shooting areas, Soto said.
The investigation also found the association installed long-range targets on an archaeological site without permission. The agency asked the association to remove the targets in April 2023, but they were not removed until January of this year.
Soto said that even despite the agreement from the 1980s saying the association needed permission to build and renovate, the association typically just renovated and fixed things up on its own.
“There wasn’t as much oversight. And then when the contract came in, making that transition was not an easy change,” she said.
Soto said the shooting range was more casually run for nearly three decades when it was operating under the memorandum of understanding, but when the first contract came in 2018, the association began hitting more hurdles to do what it felt was necessary, like renovations, to keep the range running effectively.
“We have always just fixed it,” Soto said. “We just never thought, ‘Oh, no, I better call and ask if we can do this.’ It’s just always been done.”
According to a letter she wrote to Fish and Wildlife in January, areas of the agreement with Fish and Wildlife “create unnecessary obstacles and barriers to the shooting sports we promote and reduce opportunity.”
“We kind of feel like our hands were being tied. We would ask for something. We’d be told no. We would ask for something. We would be told no,” Soto told The Tribune. “It didn’t make us not ask anymore, but it made us very leery of asking for anything. It just felt like we were running into brick walls.”
SLO Sportsmen’s Association hopes to continue shooting range operation
Soto said the association plans to submit a bid to continue operating the range, though it is not super hopeful it will be chosen.
“We’re all willing to move forward by the letter of the contract. Just let us move forward,” Soto said. “That’s all we want at this point. We want to be the ones operating this place. It’s our baby.”
Each structure on the property was built by members and volunteers of the association, she said, and with that came a community that spans nearly four decades.
It’s going to be difficult to say goodbye, she said.
“It’s been one of the most gratifying experiences I’ve ever had,” she said. “This is where I became an instructor. This is where I started seeing people shooting for the first time, going, ‘Wow, I can do this.’”
She said if the association doesn’t get the contract, she hopes whatever organization takes over can keep the programs they’ve built and give their 16 employees a chance. Part of what makes the shooting range special is the diversity in disciplines it offers, she said.
“So many people have the wrong idea about what shooting is,” Soto said. “It’s not about weapons. We don’t say that word here. A weapon is used by police and military. A firearm is used by people who like to golf, people who surf. It has a very big hill to climb before it’s completely accepted by people. It’s been our goal to try and show the public that this is not a bad thing.”
Don Eigler has made the trek from Santa Cruz to San Luis Obispo once a month for about four years specifically to shoot at the Sportmen’s Association.
It’s located between him and his brother, who lives in Los Angeles, and also one of the nicest ranges he’s been too, he said.
Eigler, who enjoys target shooting with Civil War-era rifles, told The Tribune the safety practices at the association — as well as the variety of shooting opportunities — set it apart from other ranges.
“Every range has got a vibe. It just does,” Eigler said. “This range, to me, has a very enjoyable vibe. The vibe starts with range safety officers. It probably ends with the range safety officers.”
He said being able to shoot without worry about the range’s safety allows him to use shooting targets as his form of therapy. It’s like golf, he said.
You’re focused, relaxed, and when you hit a target right in the center, the feeling is indescribable, he said.
“There’s something which is rewarding for anybody who is trying to get better at doing whatever it is that they’re doing, and then they say, ‘I’m taking a step forward, and I am getting better.’ That’s juicy stuff,” he said.
For Jim Jarvis, who’s been a member of the association for 10 years and shooting since he was a child, the changes that have come as a result of the audit have been frustrating and expensive.
“One day we were shooting, seniors got a discount. Next day, seniors don’t get a discount, and there’s no club now. You paid your dues, but you don’t get any club benefits because of the changes. You need consistency,” Jarvis said. “Those kind of things can matter in how you bring people out, and now it’s become a very expensive place to shoot.”
Despite the changes, the 72-year-old said he’ll keep shooting at the range until he can’t anymore. It’s the nicest range on the Central Coast, he said, and its the only place that offers a large variety of shooting venues and distances. He comes up from Santa Maria at least twice a week to skeet shoot and connect with friends.
It’s his happy place, he said.
“I’ve been nervous,” he said. “We’ve all been stressing out if it’s going to close or not.”
For now, Soto said, the shooting range will continue to operate from Thursday through Monday following the contract rules closely.
It’s unclear at this time when bids will open for operation of the range beginning in 2025 — or what happens if a new operator fails to step forward.
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