An Inside Look at a Troubled Range

Maidstone Gun Club members talk safety, sportsmanship, and legacy

Two very different narratives have emerged as the Maidstone Gun Club seeks to renew its land lease with East Hampton Town and fight off a lawsuit that threatens its future altogether.

In one narrative, a number of Wainscott residents push for the club's permanent closure, painting it as a dangerous nuisance. They say there's evidence that errant bullets from the club have landed on neighboring properties or struck houses and they have alleged violations of town ordinances and matters of environmental concern. Several people filed suit last November, at which point a state judge shut down the club.

But the other narrative — the Maidstone Gun Club's point of view — is rarely heard, owing to the low profile its members intentionally keep. There is no organized public-relations effort. Years of newspaper clippings indicate the club has done considerable charity work, but it prefers not to seek the limelight these days. They say safety is a top priority, that the club is neither elite nor exclusive, that its members care deeply about the community, and that they cherish the club for the sportsmanlike culture that it offers.

"It's one of the last things I have left here in East Hampton," said Mitch Yates, who joined the club in 1979, when he was 14. "We can't drive on the beaches. The forests we used to hunt in are now houses. . . . We’re 1,200 members strong from all walks of life. This is one of the few places where you can go, no matter your social status. That legacy is something that's important to us."

The members also assert that the real issue — the actual source of the bullets that have struck houses — is a strip of land behind the club, parallel to the back end of the rifle range, which is accessible, as long as you’re in a four-wheel-drive vehicle, off the fire road at the end of Industrial Road and via the power line access area off Wainscott Northwest Road. That is where illegal, unregulated, and unobstructed shooting takes place, members say.

"They could close us down tomorrow," said Jim Cavanagh, a retired police lieutenant who joined in 1984, "and there will still be the same problem of people shooting there. This has been a problem for a long time. They’re at the top of the hill, so there isn't even terrain to stop anything they shoot up there."

Rusty old appliances are riddled with bullet holes, cans and assorted rubbish appear to have been used for target practice, and used shotgun rounds are scattered everywhere. Mr. Cavanagh has taken the club's attorney up there to gather photographic evidence.

"We’re taking the blame for all of this," he said. "We just wish more people understood what we’re up against."

The club voluntarily closed its rifle range on Aug. 5 immediately after police received a report of a bullet striking a house on nearby Merchants Path. A Nov. 24 East Hampton Town police report indicates that at about 1:30 p.m. that day officers responded to reports of gunshots but found that the club was deserted. Five days later, the plaintiffs filed their suit. New York State Supreme Court Justice Christopher Modelewski issued the temporary restraining order on Dec. 2.

The Maidstone Gun Club has its roots in Amagansett in the late 1930s, where, its earliest minutes show, a group of residents began convening for sport on private property. It incorporated as a nonprofit organization in the 1950s and moved to its present site in the 1980s. The first East Hampton Town lease, $100 a year for some 100 acres, was signed in 1983. The clubhouse, for which "we poured the concrete, we hammered the nails," Mr. Yates said, opened in 1986. An extension was granted in 1993 when the town took back three acres to build a communications tower. The club's lease is to expire in October this year.

"When we moved here, it was because no one else was around here," he said. "We moved here with the understanding that we were going to be out of the way. . . . If we were to close, the shooting would continue, but on the beaches and in the woods."

Paul Sanchez, the club vice president and a member since 2009, said there's been both a generational and a dramatic demographic shift since the club moved to Wainscott. It was in the 1980s, he said, that the town supervisor "came up with a plan to invite — entice, even — the club to move to where it is now. That is why our rent is a nominal $100 per year. The town had come up with what they believed to be at that time an elegant solution to a problem: Move a ‘noisy’ gun club next to an airport and industrial park. Fast-forward to today: We are now being attacked, with the $100-per-year rent being described as some kind of entitlement to an elite bunch. . . . This is far from the truth."

Also debunking the "elite" myth, members say, is that their dues are a mere $150 a year.

Beyond two gates — first the Suffolk County Water Authority's gate on Wainscott Northwest Road, then the electronic gate marking the start of gun club territory — one of the first things a visitor notices (this was on Feb. 7) is the club's safety rules posted on a huge sign. In fact, they’re posted in at least a dozen other places, too. There are security cameras all over, as well as a license-plate reader to identify vehicles that enter the property. Several bright yellow bins resembling mailboxes contain trauma kits in case of an emergency. They’ve never been used, but they’re inspected regularly.

Signs also stress that "absolutely no armor-piercing ammunition" is allowed at the club.

"This is strictly a paper-target range — no bowling pins, no metal," Mr. Cavanagh said.

Looking through the tubes of the rifle range, a viewer sees the ground ahead and a tall, sandy berm 200 yards away. This is of particular importance, said Beau Robinson, who has been a member since 1974, because it is where the plaintiffs assert stray bullets are coming from. "You can't see blue sky," he said. "You can't get over that berm."

Inside the humbly outfitted clubhouse, big-game trophies are mounted on the walls, but none of those animals were actually shot at the Maidstone Gun Club. In fact, there's no actual hunting allowed there. All varieties of alcohol are prohibited, too.

That was "the first rule we instituted when we leased the property," Mr. Yates said.

Friends often convene on the clubhouse's covered porch. "The old guys come to hang out and tell the same stories over and over again," said Mr. Sanchez, who grew up in East Hampton and joined when his doctor suggested he take up shooting instead of bowling for health reasons. "The social life is what I miss the most."

Others miss the thrill of the sport, whether on the club's 200-yard rifle range, indoor pistol range, or in games like five stand, skeet, or trap. Trap shooting is the most popular sport at the club; it even maintained local leagues for many years.

Skeet and trap are Olympic sports. Cynthia Meyer, an Olympic gold medalist and coach from Canada, donated the club's trap equipment in 2010. And the club helped two local kids get college scholarships; one's now a Harvard-credentialed engineer, the other an East Hampton Town police officer.

Speaking of the town police, they’re allowed to access the facilities at no cost for training and practice. Same with other local law enforcement agencies and the Coast Guard. All members take mandatory safety classes.

"We want to be a place where people can go to properly learn how to use firearms," Mr. Cavanagh said.

They act as stewards not only of the sport, but also the environment, hiring a specialized company to comb the ground for lead shot reclamation every few months. "It's a good practice, environmentally," Mr. Sanchez said. "We adopted the D.E.C.'s best practices for shooting ranges. As long as those precautions are taken, the lead won't migrate" into the groundwater, which is one concern the club's neighbors have expressed.

The club's future remains uncertain as the lawsuit continues to unfold.

"We’re trying to be a good tenant of the town," Mr. Robinson said, "to maintain their trust, be a community service to our members, and be a good neighbor."