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Spread Sheet - County/City Ordinances - Stop & ID, CHP Reqs, Airguns, & Park Bans

Blk97F150

Regular Member
Joined
Dec 21, 2010
Messages
1,179
Location
Virginia
And sent the following to the City of Alexandria City Attorney:


Dear Sir, I am writing to inform you of an Alexandria City Code that is not in compliance with the Code of Virginia.

Alexandria Code Sec. 13-2-74 states:
http://library.municode.com/index.aspx?clientId=10349

Sec. 13-2-74 Discharge in city—
It shall be unlawful for any person to discharge an airgun within the city. This section shall not be construed to prohibit the council from granting permission for the maintenance of shooting galleries or target ranges under suitable regulations. (Code 1963, Sec. 41-23)

That Code Section is in direct conflict with the Code of Virginia as noted below:

http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp...cod+15.2-915.4

(B) No such ordinance authorized by subsection A shall prohibit the use of pneumatic guns at facilities approved for shooting ranges, on other property where firearms may be discharged, or on or within private property with permission of the owner or legal possessor thereof when conducted with reasonable care to prevent a projectile from crossing the bounds of the property.

I request that you please update the Alexandria City Code to bring it in compliance with the Code of Virginia.

Please inform me when this change has been made.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.
 

Grapeshot

Legendary Warrior
Joined
May 21, 2006
Messages
35,317
Location
Valhalla
Is the spread sheet still being kept up to date?

Any follow up on the letters/emails requesting correction(s)?

Nothing has been posted here since 2013. :(
 

Tess

Founder's Club Member
Joined
Jun 15, 2006
Messages
3,837
Location
Bryan, TX
Is this still being updated?

In the last issue of The Defender, we had an item about those localities that are charging more than the minimum. I thought the next issue might highlight those localities that have extraneous requirements on the books, and would like to point people to this spreadsheet - if it's up-to-date.
 

Tosta Dojen

Regular Member
Joined
Jul 23, 2008
Messages
183
Location
Roanoke, Virginia, USA
It's evident to me that the spreadsheet is not being updated. The first few links that I clicked on are broken, and the first "Y" entry that I checked is out of date -- the ordinance in question (Accomack County §58-1) has been repealed. The fellow who started the spreadsheet hasn't posted since 2013, and nobody else has taken point in his absence.

While the general idea was a good one, I think this project suffered from weaknesses in its form, as well as its sheer scale. Put simply, I think it tried to cover too many localities, and it's just too much for one unpaid volunteer to coordinate successfully.

Still, it was a worthy endeavor, and it inspired me to use the underlying idea of being organized and methodical for my local efforts. I've put together a couple of Trello boards for those:

attachment.php


I think it's worked out pretty well for me. Partly that's because Trello is designed to allow both higher-level views and detailed discussions, unlike a spreadsheet. But mostly it's because it's not too many different things for me to keep track of and follow up on in my spare time.

I've periodically kicked around the idea of scaling it up to include more localities, but frankly it comes out to require more effort than I could give it. Maybe we'd have better results with something more distributed, but even that still needs a lot of coordination -- just at different levels.
 

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Sesrun

Regular Member
Joined
May 4, 2011
Messages
84
Location
Roanoke, VA
I've been on hiatus for quite some time. Glad to see some have taken up the cause with their Towns/Counties/Cities ending in varying success.

Well today I've sent emails to
  • the City of Alexandria,
  • the Town of Altavista,
  • the Town of Amherst,
  • and Amherst County.
I also confirmed the status of some fixes including success in
  • the Town of Abingdon,
  • the Town of Accomac,
  • Accomack County,
  • the Town of West Point,
  • the City of Williamsburg,
  • the City of Winchester,
  • and York County.
I'll try to work through some more with some time, and hopefully not go on a 4 year hiatus again for for a while.
 

jmelvin

Founder's Club Member
Joined
Jun 12, 2008
Messages
2,195
Location
Lynchburg, Virginia, USA
Good stuff Sesrun! From my recollection it seems that the infraction of Amherst and the town of AltaVista are both simply related to having a county or town code restriction that matches or previously matched state law. Is that the issue at hand? I didn't try to download the spreadsheet at work.
 

Sesrun

Regular Member
Joined
May 4, 2011
Messages
84
Location
Roanoke, VA
Here's what I have on them:

Altavista issues include
  • Carry in a place of religious worship (copy of state code but unenforceable/illegal under 15.2-915)
  • Acts prohibited in town parks - possession of firearms of any type (also unenforceable/illegal under 15.2-915)
Looks like multiple contacts had been made in 2012 without success despite the Sherrif/Attorney saying it would be changed.


Town of Amherst:
  • Carry in a place of religious worship (copy of state code but unenforceable/illegal under 15.2-915)

Amherst County:
  • Specifies CCP holders can carry in parks [Ordinance is outside of county's statutory authority under 15.2-915]
  • Restricts discharge of firearms to LEO's only
    [Due to wording it implies to the lay person that carry/possession is illegal and should be reworked]
 
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jmelvin

Founder's Club Member
Joined
Jun 12, 2008
Messages
2,195
Location
Lynchburg, Virginia, USA
Thanks much. I knew about some of those, but hadn't taken action, but the ones that weren't a copy of the Virginia code I missed somehow. I've had good luck dealing with the Campbell County attorney and county supervisors, but I suppose the Town of AltaVista has its own council and such.

I think the Amherst County discharge restrictions are new as of 2015 timeframe. I knew VCDL kept up with those changes, but I had not looked at them myself since they fell in Madison Heights and the past couple years have been crazy.
 

Tosta Dojen

Regular Member
Joined
Jul 23, 2008
Messages
183
Location
Roanoke, Virginia, USA
I'll try to work through some more with some time, and hopefully not go on a 4 year hiatus again for for a while.

Nothing wrong with a hiatus. We're all real people with real lives and a bunch of the real life concerns that go along with them. If we do what we can, when we can, that's more than most.
 

Sesrun

Regular Member
Joined
May 4, 2011
Messages
84
Location
Roanoke, VA
Just finished my second degree and now back on the horse trying to take care of some of these local ordinances which continue to remain in violation of state code. Within the last week Roanoke City, Alexandria, and the Town of Altavista all acknowledged their outdated ordinances regarding CHP Fingerprinting and/or firearm sale/possession.

Roanoke City said "We have targeted these code sections for removal. We are looking to make these and other amendments as a part of our annual clean-up after the General Assembly finishes."

Alexandria was a bit more vague, however verbally acknowledged the outdated/preempted ordinances and said that although they are slowly working through updating their codes it would probably be a while before they got to the firearm ordinances.

The Town of Altavista also acknowledged their outdated park ordinance. They stated that although it had been a year since I last informed them of the offending ordinance they are still in the process of cleaning up their code. They hope to make all changes to the park ordinances at one time hopefully to be completed sometime next year.

I'm currently working on the Town of Amherst.
 
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Sesrun

Regular Member
Joined
May 4, 2011
Messages
84
Location
Roanoke, VA
The Town of Altavista sent another communication stating their intention to correct the offending ordinance individually in January 2019 due to delays in the overall park code revisions.

The Town of Amherst has also acknowledged their preempted ordinances and already have them marked for correction as part of their recodification to be completed in the next few months.

Now onto Amherst County.
 

user

Accomplished Advocate
Joined
Feb 12, 2009
Messages
2,516
Location
Northern Piedmont
Last time I checked, the County of Roanoke had an enormous run-on zoning ordinance that contained a provision making it impossible to obtain an occupancy permit for a home-based business that involves transactions in firearms. Because that provision is illegal under § 15.2-915, the entire zoning ordinance is invalid (and has been for years). (There is no provision for severability of clauses in a municipal ordinance, and the "four corners rule" applies - the document has to be taken as a whole, and everything within the "four corners" of the document has to be considered.) I'd argue that it is illegal for the county to enforce that zoning ordinance at all, and that everything they've done to implement it since the passage of the statute has been a legal nullity.
 
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