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When the Davie County Board of Adjustments meets on Tuesday, they will likely be faced with a room full of concerned neighbors – and with gun advocates looking for a place to shoot.

That room will be the Brock Performing Arts Center. And it will be one of the first large-scale meetings held with social distancing and mask-wearing requirements.

Recoil Management Academy, owned by Kirk and Christina Peavy, have requested that 40 of their 138-acre property off Sheffield and Duke Whitaker roads receive a special use permit for an outdoor shooting range. They bought the property in 2019.

Neighbors have complained that the proposed use is much more than a shooting range, per the business’s own website. They also say it is too close to homes, churches, businesses and a school.

The Davie County Zoning Ordinance defines a shooting range as: “The use of land for archery and/or the discharging of firearms for the purposes of target practice or temporary competitions.”

The board, in order to approve the request (Shooting ranges are allowed with a special use permit in residential-agricultural zones.), must decide five things:

• that the use will not materially endanger the public health or safety, if located where proposed and developed according to the plan as proposed;

• that the use meets all required conditions and specifications;

• that the use will not substantially injure the value of adjoining or abutting property, or that the use is a public necessity;

• the use will be in harmony with the area in which it is to be located and will be in general conformity with the plan of devlopment of the county; and

• the use will be consistent with the Davie County Land Development Plan or other adopted plans and policies.

The meeting begins at 6 p.m. All entering the auditorium will be asked to wear a face covering. Seats will be marked six feet apart. More directions will be posted at the door. The handicapped entrance is at the front of the auditorium off North Main Street; others will enter from the parking lot off Poplar Street.