By Lyndsie Kiebert
Reader Staff
The Ponderay City Council approved a special use permit for an indoor shooting range Monday. It will be the first range of its kind in Bonner County.
Wrenco Arms on Boyer. Photo by Ben Olson.
The facility will be an extension of Wrenco Arms, the armory on Boyer in Sandpoint. It will serve as a new retail space, repair shop and gathering place for instructional and group gathering purposes.
“The biggest benefit I see is it’s a place for the safe application of firearms,” said Wrenco Arms owner Brandon Terry. “It gives people a safe venue to come and train.”
The new shooting range will be located on Highway 95, south of Bronx Road. As of right now, Terry said he believes the range will be somewhere between 9,000 and 10,000 square feet, with 10 firearm shooting lanes and five archery lanes. He said the nearest shooting range of that size and modernity is in the Post Falls/Spokane area.
Terry noted the range will also be useful for local law enforcement, who will train there.
In response to concerns that the range would mean the constant sound of gunshots in the neighborhood, Ponderay Planning and Zoning assured residents that the facility would contain most firearm noise and keep any escaping noise within city decibel limits.
The range will tentatively open later this year or early 2019.
While we have you ...
... if you appreciate that access to the news, opinion, humor, entertainment and cultural reporting in the Sandpoint Reader is freely available in our print newspaper as well as here on our website, we have a favor to ask. The Reader is locally owned and free of the large corporate, big-money influence that affects so much of the media today. We're supported entirely by our valued advertisers and readers. We're committed to continued free access to our paper and our website here with NO PAYWALL - period. But of course, it does cost money to produce the Reader. If you're a reader who appreciates the value of an independent, local news source, we hope you'll consider a voluntary contribution. You can help support the Reader for as little as $1.
You can contribute at either Paypal or Patreon.
Contribute at Patreon Contribute at Paypal
Coming up this week! Don’t miss out on a Student Safety Summit, Sherlock, Earth Day Cleanups…. and more! See the full list of events in the 
