Popular SLO County shooting range to temporarily close after violating contract for years

A popular San Luis Obispo County shooting range will temporarily close as the California Department of Fish and Wildlife searches for a new contractor.

The shooting range, located on Highway 1 between San Luis Obispo and Morro Bay, is currently operated by the San Luis Obispo Sportsmen’s Association, a membership group made up of shooting enthusiasts.

But after an audit by Fish and Wildlife showed the association had not been in compliance with its contract for years, the association’s operation of the shooting range is set to cease on Dec. 31. The agency owns the land the shooting range operates on.

“It’s been real hard on me. I’m very stressed. I’m very sad. I never wanted to see this happen,” Julia Soto, general manager of the Sportsmen’s Association, told The Tribune on Monday. “The range is very special and very important, and I would love to see it keep going and be involved in it.”

Dave Hacker, a supervisor for Fish and Wildlife’s branch in San Luis Obispo, confirmed to The Tribune in an email Monday that the shooting range will temporarily close for the first part of 2025 as the agency looks for a new contractor to run the facility.

Shooting range advertised memberships months before it stopped honoring them

The Sportsmen’s Association learned of possible contract violations in 2021, which prompted a financial audit and a separate evaluation of renovations, a letter sent to the Sportsmen’s Association on March 11 said.

The audit and evaluation found the association was violating its contract with Fish and Wildlife in several ways, 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 payments taken outside the Fish and Wildlife system were for membership fees, which at the time of the audit were $100, $300 and $900 for annual, five-year and lifetime memberships, respectively. Members received discounts at the range, which the association charged as youth fees — another violation of the contract.

According to emails obtained by The Tribune, the association sent an email in September 2023 notifying shooters that membership fees were going to increase in October. That increase eventually went into effect in January, Soto confirmed.

The association stopped honoring memberships in April.

For Thomas Kosanke, a longtime member of the association, this felt personal.

“I’ve got friends that, based on my input, they spent money between $750, $800, $900,” Kosanke told The Tribune in September. “That hurt, because they came to me.”

One of these friends, who declined to be named since he still shoots at the range, shared emails with The Tribune that showed Soto told him he was on the refund list since he bought a $750 lifetime membership in November — six months before memberships stopped being honored. He confirmed to The Tribune he has not been refunded as of Tuesday.

Soto said Fish and Wildlife audited the association in August 2023. At that time, she was not aware that the memberships were going to be an issue in the audit and was unaware that they would no longer be honored months after advertising the price increases. She learned of the audit results in March, when the report was finished.

She said no memberships have been refunded because of “cash flow” issues but said that the association will know more about the refund process once a decision about the new contractor is made.

If the contract goes to another organization, Soto said, the association would dissolve the nonprofit. That dissolution will inform the association about where refunds may stand, she said.

“If they actually awarded (the contract) to us, that would put us in a whole other line of action,” Soto said.

Can the Sportsmen’s Association submit a bid to continue running the shooting range?

Krysten Kellum, spokesperson for Fish and Wildlife, told The Tribune the request for proposals has to be approved internally, and once it’s posted, contractors will have 45 days to submit their proposals. After that 45-day period, the agency will choose the new contractor.

Hacker said the time frame means the agency won’t advertise a request for proposals until after the first of the year. With the 45-day application period, followed by evaluation of proposals, selection and start-up, it could be a few months before the range reopens.

The contract process will be open for bids from any qualified entity, which does include the Sportsmen’s Association despite their previous violations, Kellum confirmed.

Soto said the association intends to place a bid for the contract unless they hear they no longer qualify.

Soto told The Tribune in September the association did not intentionally violate the contract, but rather continued to operate and make renovations the way it always had prior to the contract becoming more specific in 2018.

“We definitely made some decisions at different points that we shouldn’t have, and we are very sorry about that and that it’s led to this. We just don’t want the range to permanently go away,” Soto told The Tribune on Monday. “No matter who gets awarded the contract, we want people to continue using the facility.”

She said Fish and Wildlife plans to take possession of everything on the property on Jan. 1, except for personal items and items that no longer have a depreciating value. Until then, the shooting range will continue to operate normally.

But after seeing how the Sportsmen’s Association ran the range, Kosanke believes its time for new management to come in.

“You’ve got to cut out the cancer,” Kosanke said Tuesday. “You’ve got to get rid of it and get somebody that can actually run a proper operation.”

He said he hopes everyone who bought memberships prior to them no longer being honored get refunded and that the new contractor who comes in can follow the rules set by Fish and Wildlife.

He also hopes the new contract allows for military or law enforcement discounts, a benefit that many private ranges provide and that the association provided before the audit found discounts were a violation of the contract.