Burlington Rifle and Revolver Club seeks $6 million debenture from city to expand

EDITOR'S NOTE: The headline on this story has been updated to reflect that the gun club is seeking a debenture from the City of Burlington for its expansion.

The Burlington Rifle and Revolver Club has its sights set on expansion. 

The club, which opened its current facility in 1965, is built on land owned by the city of Burlington – though the club owns the building. Members want to expand the existing 50-yard range to a 100-yard range, more suited for rifle shooting.

“We’re getting close to being able to do something, but we’re not quite sure yet what it’s going to be,” Dennis Downs, secretary of the gun club said. “It’ll be up to the architects to say, and that’s going to be based on money as well.”

The club has raised $2.4 million so far to help expand the club, and is asking the city to guarantee up to an additional $6 million debenture. The range is one of only two joint ventures of the sort in the city, the other being the Curling Club on New Street. 

Members are seeking permission to build north and west into what Downs called grey land, where there is nothing in the area except for King Road, where the club already sits. 

“We’ve already done the environmental assessments, we’ve done a new survey, and this is what we’ve asked the city to do,” Downs said. “We’re going to ask the city to guarantee a loan, and we’ll have a business plan together for the city at some point.”

Downs added that the expanded facility will be able to accommodate more than just the gun club. They are hoping to build a classroom or community room with seating for up to 60 people. 

Downs said there are already interested parties who are hoping to get the additions underway as soon as possible. There's a wait-list for membership of some 200 people.

“We do a lot of training, teaching two or three full courses each year,” Yves Isabelle, treasurer of the Burlington Amateur Radio Club said. “Each course lasts up to three months, and their plans include classroom facilities that we could make use of.” 

Isabelle added the gun club is in a prime location that could help boost the radio club’s signal from the current antenna on top of the rocks just west of Dundas and Brant. 

The Burlington Rifle and Revolver Club is the largest gun club east of Calgary, having just surpassed 2,400 members. 

Handgun and rifle shooting are on regularly indoors, with leagues and training for competitions during the week. Outside, a small archery range also need to be built upon, Downs told Council's committee of the whole meeting last Monday. Demand for that has also increased. "We had to start a new membership application process just for archery."

“We’ve seen a huge increase in archery memberships, since it’s less expensive than owning guns,” Downs said. “We have two 30 metre lanes right now, and part of our plan is to increase that to either four or six lanes, and go as far as 80 metres.”

No decision on the gun club expansion, or the $6 million, has been made yet. 

Councillor Angelo Bentivegna asked if there were any safety issues the club has had to deal with.

Downs said the club has never had a serious safety issue in the decades it's been operating. In fact, with some 40 security cameras set up on the King Road site, they help the police out by offering their footage when needed for investigations in the area.

"We’re a safety driven club," he stated.