SANDPOINT — A legal showdown is looming in Bonner County’s lawsuit against the city of Sandpoint over the Festival at Sandpoint’s prohibition of firearms during the annual waterfront concert series.

First District Judge Lansing Haynes is scheduled to hear arguments on competing motions for summary judgment during a remotely-conducted hearing in Kootenai County on June 19. Bonner County and the city are simultaneously calling on the court to resolve the case as a matter of law and without a jury trial.

Bonner County and Sheriff Daryl Wheeler brought the suit last year, after two armed Festival patrons where turned away at the front gate. The city was drawn into the fray because the concert series is held at War Memorial Field, which the city leases to the Festival for two weeks in August.

Idaho law prohibits the infringement of Second Amendment rights on public land. The city maintains the Festival has the right to enact its own security protocols while leasing the venue.

Former Festival Executive Director Dyno Wahl submitted a declaration earlier this month stating that there had always been a prohibition against weapons during her 20-year tenure.

“Prior to 2018, the policy was essentially on an honor system,” Wahl said in the document.

But by 2019, most of the musical artists playing the Festival required the weapons prohibition as a part of their contract to perform, which resulted in more stringent security measures.

In their motion to bring an abrupt end to the dispute, the city’s legal counsel argue that the county lacks standing to bring the legal action and has failed to adequately address the preliminary question of what harm they are threatened with.

They also take issue with the county’s contention that Second Amendment advocates will hold an armed protest during the Festival and fear it could devolve into a deadly clash like the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.

“Palpably, the purpose of the plaintiff’s arguments is to trade on a fear that Second Amendment advocates will turn into an uncontrollable mob, unless of course the court pacifies their demands,” Coeur d’Alene attorneys Peter Erbland and Katharine Brereton said in a 25-page response to the county’s motion for summary judgment.

Erbland and Brereton further argue that the county is constitutionally prohibited from interfering with the city of Sandpoint’s affairs.

The county’s counsel, Amy Clemmons, contend the county would be impacted because the sheriff and prosecutor would be charged with prosecuting violations if protesters are arrested at the Festival.

Moreover, a relaxed standing analysis is applied to remedy threatened constitutional violations and an existing threat of future injury satisfies the requirements for standing in the case, Clemmons said in court documents. Clemons also argues that a temporary lease does not convert public property into private.

“Absent the court resolving the legal controversy, the city will continue to engage in a persistent pattern infringing upon constitutional and statutory rights, causing a protest and impacting the sheriff,” Clemmons wrote.

Keith Kinnaird can be reached by email at kkinnaird@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow him on Twitter @KeithDailyBee.