8
NEWS
Week of March 16 – March 22, 2018
NOTES FROM CITY HALL by Thomas Dimopoulos • Saratoga TODAY
MEETINGS AT CITY HALL
City Center Authority, Council Vote to End Gun Show
MONDAY, MARCH 19 9:30 a.m. - City Council Pre-agenda Meeting 7 p.m. - Zoning Board of Appeals Meeting
TUESDAY, MARCH 21 7 p.m. - City Council Meeting
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 21 7 p.m. - Design Review Commission Meeting
Protesters and counter-protesters demonstrate outside the Saratoga Springs City Center during the January 2013 gun show. Photo by Thomas Dimopoulos.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Two days after the Saratoga Springs City Center Authority unanimously moved to ban the future sale and display of firearms and ammunition at the center, the City Council on March 9 voted likewise, effectively concluding the gun show’s 30-plus year-run at the Broadway venue following the May 25 - May 28 Arms Fair. The event, organized by David Petronis and promoted as New Eastcoast Arms Collectors Associates Inc., has typically staged three or four shows annually at the City Center since the mid-1980s. According to
Petronis, each of his weekend shows bring an average of 2,000 to 3,000 visitors to Saratoga Springs, in addition to many of his own organization’s members, who number about 1,000. The presence of the gun show in Saratoga Springs has become the focus of controversy in the past few years, however, as the incidence of mass shootings has increased around the country. In January 2013, about a month after a mass shooter killed 20 children and six educators at the Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, more than 1,500 people signed
a petition urging the city to stop the show, while thousands more gun owners and dealers staged a counter-protest. Both groups held demonstrations outside the show. A 2013 resolution, passed in a 3-2 vote by the then-City Council, called for gun owners to secure long guns in cases when in downtown Saratoga Springs, but did not call for an outright halt to the show. Last August the show drew further controversy after Petronis announced the fair would display Adolf Hitler’s personal writing desk and other items from Hitler’s Munich apartment in the 1930s. After being contacted by City Center Executive Director Ryan McMahon, Petronis agreed to exclude the display from the show. The City Center, which stands on city-owned land, is operated by the City Center Authority, whose board is comprised of seven members confirmed by majority vote of the City Council. The CCA Board on March 7 voted 6-0, with one member absent, in favor of amending its lease agreement with the city of Saratoga Springs to stipulate firearms and ammunition not be sold or displayed at the venue.