GA Shooting Range's Liquor License Approved

Who says guns and alcohol don't mix? Certainly not the Powder Springs City Council in Georgia, which approved a liquor license for a proposed shooting range that will serve alcohol.

The owners of a gun shop came up with the idea of opening a $3.5 million indoor gun range complete with its own bar, reports NBC. But the owners do note that patrons who visit the bar will be flagged and prevented from returning to the firing range.

So is this a good or safe business mix? Or is this just clever marketing as patrons won't actually be boozing with one hand and shooting a gun with the other?

Offering beer and bullets can be a clever marketing ploy and will certainly attract a type of customer. But the owners of the business better be prepared for the fallout as well. That's because every potential customer at the shooting range/bar is potentially armed.

As there's a drunken bar brawl at almost every bar on any given night, the drunken bar brawls at this shooting range/bar has the heightened potential to escalate to a violent gun fight quite easily.

So if the bar does not provide adequate levels of security or train bar tenders when to cut certain patrons off, the bar has enhanced exposure to liability that a typical bar wouldn't have. That's what they get for catering to armed customers.

Good business ideas that sound great on paper, often do not work out so well in practice. While the gun-toting crowd may be looking for a spot to wind-down and shoot off a few rounds, mixing bullets and beers is a very delicate business model.

The Powder Springs City Council may have approved the liquor license, but the ultimate job of running a safe business will be on the business owners.

Related Resources:

• Governor's Club Gun Range Gets City Approval To Serve Alcohol (Huffington Post)
• Why Your Workplace Needs a Gun Policy (FindLaw's Free Enterprise)
• Gun Stores: New California Ammunition Law (FindLaw's Free Enterprise)