Polk residents complain about neighbor’s shooting range

Residents of the Tall Pine Acres private housing development off of Route 209 in Polk Township voiced concerns about a neighbor’s private shooting range at the township supervisors meeting Monday night.

David Roos and Ray and Maritza Fernandez said that their neighbor shot for hours in his backyard Aug. 10, raising both noise and safety concerns.

The neighbor was shooting west into a backstop made of wood and hay, behind which is an empty field, Roos said during the meeting.

But several neighbors, including Roos and the Fernandezes, live to the north of his house across Grassy Road. Adjoining the back of their houses is the Pleasant Valley Elementary School property.

Ray Fernandez said that the shooting is a safety concern both for children living along Grassy Road and for the elementary students.

“I won’t let my kids go in my front yard, my dogs go hide in the house,” Roos said after the meeting. “It’s like you’re a prisoner in your house for a day.”

Roos found what he believed to be a fragment of a bullet in his pool the next day and called the state police to investigate.

“The state police could not say that it definitely was a bullet, but it’s a fragment of something the next day that was at the bottom of my pool. To me that’s what it looks like,” Roos said, pulling the metal fragment out of his pocket.

Roos told the supervisors that the man told a neighbor he was a gun trainer and that the four or five people with him were shooting safely. Roos said he also heard from a neighbor that they were using AR-15s and 50-caliber handguns.

The man moved in three to four years ago and shoots regularly, and this is the third or fourth time it has been a daylong event, Roos said.

The supervisors said during the meeting that the township currently has no ordinance against this kind of shooting, but that they will look into what they can do.

Chairman Brian Ahner said that because of the noise, this issue might fit under the drafted nuisance ordinance once it is voted on. For now, he said the police recommend that residents call so that they can investigate and shut the shooting down if it is a safety concern.

“The township could look into passing some kind of ordinance that prohibited discharging a firearm in a residential zone or within so many feet of an improved residential property,” solicitor James Fareri said.

Fareri said he will research this issue and get back to the township.