Proposed gun club and bar causes stir at village board meeting

FOX 32 NEWS - Guns and booze, it's a combination that got a lot of southwest suburban residents fired up Monday night.

The Willowbrook Village Board is debating whether or not to allow a gun club and bar to open up at the intersection of 79th Street and Frontage Road. It would be called the Chicago Gun Club and Training Facility.

Willowbrook residents packed the village board meeting. At issue, a proposed 31,000-square-foot gun club facility that the developers refer to as a "Guntry club."

The planning commission unanimously recommended it to the village board.

"I don't own a gun,” Joe Neveril from Chicago Gun Club LLC said. “And the reason for that, the reason for that is because there are not enough quality facilities to train."

Zoltan Backsay lives nearby the proposed location. He helped warn other residents about it.

"I still feel very passionately that any combination...Is just a disaster."

The facility would have 32 bays for its firing range, two membership lounges, including one with a bar.

The village says the proposal would not allow members to consume alcohol in the lounge before entering the shooting range. However, residents are skeptical over any shooting range serving alcohol on the premises.