The Lawrence College and Career Center, 2910 Haskell Ave.

City commissioners will have the final say Tuesday on whether a new gun range can be located in a spot on the southern edge of Lawrence near the school district’s College and Career Center — a proposal that has pitted the school district against the local businessman behind the idea.

Commissioners will have to decide between following up on a recommendation by the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission to reject the proposal because of the site’s proximity to the school, and their staff’s support for the business, the location of which they say is legal according to federal, state and city laws.

“I’ve been talking with some of the city commissioners and going over some stuff,” said Rick Sells, who’s proposing the range. “There’s a lot of stuff they’re going to have to take into consideration.”

Sells plans to open the indoor shooting range and gun sales and repair shop in the vacant building at 1021 E. 31st St., about 760 feet away from the Lawrence College and Career Center at 2910 Haskell Ave. The center is attended by hundreds of students from both high schools.

The property at 1021 E. 31st St. is currently zoned as industrial. In order to locate the business there, Sells is seeking to rezone it to commercial.

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The planning commission voted 4-2 on Nov. 16 to recommend the City Commission deny the request. The vote was taken after the Lawrence Board of Education came out in opposition to the gun range because of its concern for the safety students and staff at the College and Career Center.

The board’s letter of opposition also states that there are plans for a new Lawrence Boys and Girls Club Teen Center to be constructed on the College and Career Center’s campus. The club is currently accepting donations for the teen center, which will operate an after-school program for about 300 middle and high school students.

“It’s not an appropriate location for a business that sells deadly weapons — that close to a school,” school board member Shannon Kimball told the planning commission.

After hearing the school board’s complaints, Sells said he had little time to defend himself before the planning commission took its vote. He said he had not heard any negative feedback about his idea before then.

“There was one guy who said, ‘Rick, you’re going to try to open a gun club in the big blue dot?'” Sells said, referencing Lawrence’s reputation as a liberal community. “I said, ‘I’m going to give it a whirl.'”

When considering this issue, one thing commissioners will have to note, Sells said, is that the location of the proposed range is legal.

Both the school board’s letter and a city staff report point out the federal Gun-Free School Zones Act, which prohibits any person from knowingly possessing a firearm within a 1,000 feet of a school. The shooting range would be an exception to the law because it allows possession and firing of a gun on private property.

Sells said the law would require anyone leaving the shooting range to store their unloaded firearms in a locked container before leaving the property.

In their letter, the school board members stated they were “highly skeptical” that customers would take that precaution.

“If it was illegal, I’d be right there with them; I’d agree, I’d understand,” he continued. “But there’s nothing to keep me from doing this legally.”

Among the items Sells hopes city commissioners will consider Tuesday are the safety measures that would be implemented in his renovation of the property to follow federal regulations on gun range design.

He also said the shooting range would provide another in-town option to Lawrence gun owners, some of whom, he said, travel to other cities to use their shooting facilities.

Lawrence does have a city-owned gun range in the basement of the Community Building at 115 W. 11th St. It’s used by the Douglas County Rifle/Pistol Club and open to the public weekday nights.

The door to a city-owned gun range in located in the basement of the Community Building at 115 W. 11th St. is pictured on Jan. 8, 2016.

Sells said this point was a “pet peeve.”

“Everybody in town against this, what they don’t realize is there’s a gun range in the basement of the community building,” he said.

Sells said that if the rezoning is not approved Tuesday, he has a backup location in mind: the Malls Shopping Center at the intersection of 23rd and Louisiana streets.

With that location, Sells would not have to go through the zoning process, as it is already zoned as commercial.

Sells prefers the location on 31st Street, which is on the southern edge of town, away from residential neighborhoods.

Though he’s wary of how commissioners will vote, Sells said he would go into the meeting Tuesday “open-minded.”

He said one thing he’d be fighting against is that the public is mostly “uneducated about the topic” or the reasoning for which people would want to use the range.

“A lot of guys work all week, and by Thursday they’re stressed out. Some of them go to the country club and hit a bucket of golf balls, but some people like to squeeze a trigger,” Sells said. “It is a recreation.”