The city of Jennings agreed Tuesday to lease a city-owned shooting range to a local firearms dealer to provide safety training and certification for law enforcement officers and local gun owners.

The Jennings City Council approved a three-year lease agreement with the Blackwater Gun Club to lease the shooting range which is located on a 40-acre site off Racca Road. The lease price will be $1,200 per year, according to Mayor Henry Guinn.

“This lease will allow a local business the opportunity to expand his business, but also give priority to our first responders that need post certification training,” Guinn said.

The city has owned the shooting range, which is used mostly by local law enforcement for training and certification purposes, for over 20 years. The property is the site of a former landfill and was used by the city to burn vegetative debris following Hurricanes Laura and Delta.

The city will continue to have 24 hour access to the property as a burn site, Guinn said.

Local Blackwater Gun Club owner/operator Rusty Sonnier said leasing the property will benefit the company as a small business, as well as the community and law enforcement officers.

“Our mission is to develop professional grade firearms training courses that will be offered to the public and allow us to expand our technical service offerings,” Sonnier said. “These courses will be aimed at educating everyone, from the novice to the experienced, in safe practices in firearms operation.”

The use of the range will also allow the company to broaden its service offering, including dialing in precision optics for recreation and wild game hunters and assist local law enforcement officers with firearms, optic and outfitting needs, Sonnier said.

“We have worked with law enforcement in the past to service their firearms or optics needs, often helping the officers get outfitted, but we are limited in the capacity in which we can operate those technical services in the small space that we have indoors,” Sonnier said. “Outdoors will allow us to expand on those services and provide better service.”

“I cannot tell you the amount of folks who have come into our store, and we have guided them as far as we can from a retail prospective, giving them as much training as we can at the counter and they’ll still come back two years later, after purchasing a firearm from us and say they still have never taken it out of the box and never had an opportunity to shoot it because they are not comfortable.”

The shooting range will offer a designated space in a controlled environment to train the public, he said.

“Members of our community who felt like they had no source for training will now have a local level of training so that they can gain knowledge, experience and confidence,” Sonnier said.

Training classes will be scheduled in the future, he said.

Local law enforcement will continue to have access to the property for training purposes, Sonnier said. He hopes to be able to enhance training and courses to benefit law enforcement in serving the community.

As part of the lease agreement, the company will maintain the property, including protective berms, grass maintenance, gates and fencing. The Jeff Davis Parish Sheriff’s Office currently cuts the grass and maintains the property.