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~~ 2. <br />City of Falcon Heights <br />. Report on Findings Related to the Location of Gun Shops <br />DATE: 27 March 1995 <br />TO: Mayor and Councilmembers <br />Planning Commission <br />FROM: Susan Hoyt, City Administrator <br />RE: Findings related to the location of gun shops <br />After reviewing the Gun Shop Zoning Study by the City of St. Paul, the Report from <br />the State of Minnesota Administrative Law Judge in the Application of the St Paul <br />Firearms Company for a Firearms Dealer's License at 634 North Snelling Avenue, <br />1993, and A Survey of Experiences. Perceptions and Apprehensions About Guns <br />Among Young People in America prepared for the Harvard School of Public Health, <br />conducted by LH Research Inc., 1993, which are on file with the City of Falcon <br />Heights, the following findings relating to the location of gun shops are made: <br />1. Children's unsupervised exposure to firearms can create potential images of <br />violence for children and cause them to be afraid. <br />2. Children's unsupervised exposure to firearms may stimulate an interest in guns <br />and may be associated with increasing violence in society. <br />3. Gun shops may reduce residential property values due to the number of <br />burglaries that occur at gun shops. <br />4. The City of St. Paul minimized potential negative impacts from the location of <br />gun shops on children and residential property values by adopting zoning <br />regulations that locate gun shops and shooting galleries in an industrial zone at <br />least 1,000 feet from all residential zones and at least 1,000 feet from all <br />protected uses (school, identified day-care, churches and parks). <br />5. The City of Falcon Heights, which abuts the City of St. Paul and shares some <br />similar neighborhood characteristics with the neighborhoods along the northern <br />border of St. Paul, finds that minimal radial distances within the city's <br />community business district are necessary to protect children and residential <br />property values from the potential negative impacts of gun shops in the city. <br />6. The City of Falcon Heights is uniquely configured. At this time the city cannot <br />adopt uniform minimum 1,000 foot distance requirements from all residential <br />and protected uses in the city and still provide a zoned location for a gun shop. <br />• Therefore, the zoned location for a gun shop is conditioned upon minimal <br />distances of 750 <br />