A Hauser gun club is battling the city over whether the facility should restrict its days of operation, due to its amount of activity.

The nonprofit Hauser Lake Rod and Gun Club has spent more than $20,000 in attorneys fees so far, its board members say, fighting a notice of violation the city has filed over the facility's increased use.

"We feel like they don't have the right. We're a business, like a convenience store," said Jerry Paulus, former board president. "We feel they don't have the right to dictate when we can operate."

But Hauser Code Administrator Cindy Espe says the city has fielded complaints from residents for years about the gun club operating too many days a week, as its membership has grown.

The gun club could remedy the violation notice by simply applying for a permit to open more days, Espe said.

"They don't believe they need to ask for permission," she said.

The issue was stirred up when the gun club applied for a building permit for a new pole barn on the property this February, said club board President Jay Thompson.

At a hearing before the Planning and Zoning Commission, he said, scores of residents testified that shooting at the club had increased to several days a week, upsetting neighbors' quality of life.

The club has always been open two or three days a week since its start in 1963, Thompson said.

The nonprofit considers itself able to operate seven days a week, though, and constantly changes which days it opens, he added. It is open on Tuesdays and Saturdays.

Members are occasionally allowed to shoot any day of the week, he noted, if they seek advance permission from the club board.

"It depends on the needs of our members," Thompson said of the nonprofit's scheduling.

That's why the club was upset, he said, when the Planning and Zoning Commission decided to only issue the building permit if the club agreed not to operate on Sundays and one other day of the week.

"It had become less about the permit than shutting us down on certain days a week," Thompson said.

The club is only open on Sundays during the Winter Shoot from January to March, Paulus noted, but it brings in most of the year's revenue then.

"We only get 25 cents a round. That's what we make," Paulus said.

The club next received a notice of potential violation from the city early this summer, Thompson said, over the expansion of its use as a non-conforming facility.

"They said we had to answer that before we were issued any permit at all," he said.

Espe said the notice of violation is tied to the club being a non-conforming use, meaning it opened before related ordinances went into effect.

A non-conforming use business can't expand its activity without a permit, she said, yet the gun club has recently increased its days of shooting.

"They are grandfathered in for what they used to do and have always done," Espe said. "They've always shot two to three days a week. They want to shoot more days a week, so it became a violation."

The notice of violation could be lifted, she added, if the club pursues a permit to operate more days.

"It's just whether they're willing to do it," she said.

She would like to see the club network with local homeowners about setting certain days for no shooting, she added.

"With the gun club sporadically shooting whenever, they can't plan anything," Espe said.

Joe Cathey, who has lived within 1,000 feet of the gun club since 1985, said club members started shooting seven days a week earlier this year.

"One reason we live in the country is to have some peace and quiet," Cathey said, adding that he was told the club wasn't operating when he bought his home. "We just want our neighborhood to get at least one day of the weekend for activities of our home and our community."

The club brought in attorneys months ago on this, Thompson said.

The nonprofit has never been told it should seek a permit to increase the days of week it operates, he said.

Regardless, the club doesn't need permission to set its own days of operation, he said.

"That's not satisfactory," he said.

The club board believes Idaho statute forbids the city from restricting the club's activity. Thompson pointed to section 55-2601, which states that a municipal noise control ordinance can't be used to restrict activity of a shooting range in use prior to that law.

"They have no jurisdiction over our days and when we shoot," Thompson said.

Treasurer Dale Pritzl also denied that club members have ever shot seven days a week, even though membership has risen from about 125 to roughly 200 in the past several years.

"We have no intention of doing that," Pritzl said of running seven days a week.

Espe said the section of Idaho statute the gun club alludes to doesn't apply in this situation.

"The Idaho statute does not allow us to limit the noise decibels, which we're not, and it doesn't allow us to limit the hours they're open, which we're not," she said. "This is just about days of operation, and that statute lists everything except days of operation."

The city Planning and Zoning Commission recently denied the gun club's appeal of the violation notice.

The club is prepared to continue appealing, Paulus said, though it is running out of funding.

To the point it can no longer afford its requested pole barn.

"We'll carry it as a far as we can to get a resolution," Paulus said.