Los Angeles has some of the strictest gun-sale restrictions of any city in the United States, but new rules moving up in the Sacramento state house could add additional worries for local firearms retailers already tiptoeing through bureaucratic red tape.
Gun shops are few and far in between in the Los Angeles metro area save for one municipality: Beverly Hills.
While the city of Los Angeles has prohibited the opening of new gun shops, the incorporated hillside city can issue its own business permits. Over the past three years, four gun shops have opened in the 90210 ZIP code, cashing in on worries wealthy residents have about crime in the city.
These high-end outlets voiced frustration about new limits on conceal-carry permits and where in public guns can be carried.
On Sept. 12 lawmakers approved new rules restricting who can carry loaded weapons in public. The bill, authored by Sen. Anthony Portantino, who represents Burbank in District 25, responded to last year’s Supreme Court ruling that struck down a portion of California’s conceal-carry law requiring permit applicants to provide compelling reasons for why they need to carry a gun in public.
Once signed, the law will require applicants to be 21 years old or older and have 16 hours of training – double the amount of time currently mandated by the state.
The new conceal-carry provisions came less than a week after the California Legislature approved an 11% excise tax on the sale of guns and ammunition, which will go into effect on July 1 next year.
It is the first such bill to make it Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk after similar sales or excise tax legalization failed half a dozen times in the past decade.
According to Russell Stuart, owner of Beverly Hills Guns, nothing has changed for his customers stuck on a permit waitlist.
“The process was made to fail,” Stuart said. “It was made to slow it down.”
Stuart added that the majority of his clients are looking for handguns suitable for concealed carry.
Beverly Hills Guns processed concealed-carry permit applications at one point, but backlogs in the county’s processing system made it difficult to service customers looking at two-year waiting periods to carry a weapon in Los Angeles County.
New standards
After last year’s Supreme Court decisions struck down the California statute giving county sheriffs discretion over who may qualify for concealed carry permits, applications flooded the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department system. In initial reporting, then-Sheriff Alex Villanueva reported thousands of applications were received that year. According to California Department of Justice data, the county had issued only 336 permits in the decade prior.
New concealed-carry standards set to go in effect next year through Senate Bill 2 could further stifle the number of people able to carry.
Stuart opened his shop in 2020 and takes credit for starting a “jewelry store” experience trend for Beverly Hills gun clientele.
Operating an office building on Wilshire Boulevard, the gun shop doesn’t have a public storefront; customers buying Glocks can’t be snapped by paparazzi.
“I have a lot of celebrity clients, and those clients going into the pandemic were asking about firearms,” Stuart said. “One of them said, ‘I want to get a gun, but because of who I am, I can’t show my face at a gun store.’”
Another Beverly Hills-based gun shop, Bear Arms Defense Corp., said additional regulations can drive more people to consider buying guns. The state’s new 11% tax hike doesn’t dissuade his rich customer base willing to shell out thousands for Colt Magnums or other types of high-end weapons seen in movied.
“I haven’t noticed an immediate uptick or downtick in business based on any current legislation,” said owner Elias Dhalhub. “It all drives people back, like the fear of not being able to buy.”
In the past year, three new gun laws were introduced by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, adding a local layer of regulatory scrutiny following the Monterey Park shooting last year. In February the Board approved ordinances restricting gun sales and possession in unincorporated areas.
One longtime gun shop, Martin B. Retting Inc., which says it was established in 1928 and has been its current location in Culver City since 1958, announced on its website in July that it would close because of the retirement of its owners.
A Burbank hub
More-traditional retailers in Burbank, a city whose government reported the second most gun stores per capita in the U.S. last year, were more concerned that further taxes and permit requirements could make buying guns more difficult for the customer already on a budget and on the fence about investing in a weapon.
“Weapons are used in a vast majority of crimes, but the people who are committing these crimes are not the people that come into gun stores and pass background checks,” said Jonathan Soloman, the chief executive officer of Redstone Firearms, a Burbank store that also provides firearm safety and permit-preparation classes. Soloman opened the outlet with his wife, Geneva, in 2015 and saw business surge following the pandemic amid reports of rising crime in cities like Los Angeles.
Soloman says business has steadied, adding that the store see between 40 to 50 people a day by appointment. But with an excise tax pushing costs higher for the average handgun sale, the number of customers willing to shell out hundreds for weapons could shrink.
“Now we have to pay an 11% increase on items that are already overpriced because we’re in California,” Soloman said.
On the concealed-carry front, other store owners have reported more customers are looking for smaller handguns, even if they’re stuck on Los Angeles County’s permit waitlist.
“The main reason people tell me they want one is, ‘There’s been a lot of crime in my area, I don’t feel safe,’” said Eric Fletcher, a sales associate at Burbank Ammo & Guns. “It’s just the same story over and over.”
