Hopes of saving a 40-year old gun club in Secaucus failed as the town has moved to turn the location into a park.
Earlier this year, the Meadowlands Rifle & Pistol Club sought reprieve from eviction through a request to the Town Council to reconsider the move. The town purchased the land near the end of Millridge Road late last year from a private developer to use as a park. The gun club had been renting the property for many years. But the town in conjunction with the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission intends to put an environmental center and park at that location, and Secaucus officials felt the pistol range would not fit in easily with the future plans.
When that failed, gun club owners sought to move the facility to the south end of town by requesting from the Hudson County Freeholders use of a portion of Laurel Hill Park. The gun club asked permission to use for the new range a section of land that is beneath the arch of the New Jersey Turnpike and away from the publicly-used areas of county park located at the southern most tip of Secaucus. The project would be paid out of National Rifle Association grant funds and not by the taxpayers.
The county originally proposed a range at that location in the 1980s when it anticipated the construction of a police and fire academy. When the county later abandoned plans for the academy, the range was also abandoned.
While a somewhat skeptical Hudson County Board of Chosen Freeholders agreed to consider the proposal, the board also made several demands, some of which the gun club was just not able to meet. – thus ending the club’s continued presence in Secaucus.
“If the county had allowed the facility on park property, the gun club would have had to open the facility to all the police departments in the county,” said Mayor Dennis Elwell. “This was beyond what the gun club thought it could do.”
A critical shortage of places to shoot
Police departments throughout the area are scrambling to find facilities that will allow them to practice use of their firearms in order to maintain their state certification.
Many police officers used the Meadowlands gun club to meet state requirements. Two years ago, Secaucus made arrangements with the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission to use a facility in North Arlington. But that facility closed this year as part of a golf course projected being constructed there. The fact that ranges have been closing throughout the area has posed serious problems for police departments, since municipalities are required to pay for the time the officers spend practicing. The further away from the town, the higher the cost in transportation and overtime, Elwell said.
Adding insult to injury, especially for Jersey City – which had offered to join in with the plan to move the gun club – is the fact that the facility the Jersey City Police currently use in the Meadowlands will close shortly to make room for the new Allied Junction exit from the New Jersey Turnpike.
In order to accommodate another range, Elwell has held meeting with representatives of Norfolk Southern, a rail firm that operates the Croxton Yards in Jersey City on the border of Secaucus.
“I’ve been talking with officials in Jersey City about possibly opening a range on land provided by the railroad,” Elwell said. “There are nine acres adjacent to the Croxton Yards that might be used.”
This would be a by-product of negotiations currently underway between Secaucus and the rail company over the possible construction of a bridge over rail tracks into the southern portion of Secaucus.
The pistol range, if opened, would be available to all police departments in Hudson County.