Guns & Rosé – Edenvale is up in arms

Five years ago, Alex Gagiano discovered a vacant plot opposite her Edenvale home was being developed into a business that manufactured and sold equipment for the security and safety industry. She believed it was releasing harmful industrial chemicals into the residential area.

Her Democratic Alliance ward councillor, Heather Hart, did not share her concern. The two ended up in a dispute that progressed from sparring over email to exchanging insults at meetings of the community policing forum and in person.

Now Gagiano has received a surprise visit from the police, who say she could be investigated for her own allegedly illegal trade in weapons.

The visit, she has learned, arose from a DA question in Parliament.

Allegations made against the business opposite Gagiano’s home were dismissed in 2011 when a town council tribunal found that no industrial manufacturing took place on the premises. The business also obtained a licence to assemble electronic parts.

Gagiano’s dispute with the DA representatives in her ward, particularly Hart, continued. She argued that the DA was not fulfilling its mandate to address issues in the community, such as potholes.

Hart maintains Gagiano was just a sore loser: “The business was cleared; Mrs Carlyle did not like the outcome of the tribunal hearing and she has vowed to destroy the DA i n Edenvale,” Hart told the Mail & Guardian in an email, referring to Gagiano by her married name.

The battle between the two continued until a startling visitor appeared outside Gagiano’s gate several weeks ago. He said he was with the police.

“He was an absolute gentleman. He came in, introduced himself, and then sat down and told me what was happening,” Gagiano says.

Not only was he from the police, he was also with the Hawks; he was there because her name had come up in Parliament.

Gagiano uses her married name i n formal, official situations, which includes online advertising for her husband’s gun companies.

Guntree is the Gumtree for guns, and it’s where Gagiano posts adverts for secondhand guns her husband sells. She maintains the sales are conducted through her husband’s businesses, which are licensed to sell guns, and the online posts are her way of helping him find customers.

But DA MP Mike Waters didn’t see it that way. In March this year Waters asked the minister of police in Parliament “whether the seller of the 19 firearms (name and details furnished) has a licence to sell such weapons” and whether she had a licence to own a Norinco, the Chinese variant of the Russian AK-47, which requires a special licence.

“Ms Alex Gagiano cannot be in possession of or deal with 19 firearms or any other firearms as she is not in possession of a relevant dealers’ licence,” was the minister’s response.

Gagiano is contemplating leaving Edenvale. She claims she broke no laws by advertising guns because the transactions would be made through her husband’s licensed companies.

She adds that, though her family has a history of supporting the DA, she will not vote DA. And, she says, her husband concurs: “He says he’s voting Economic Freedom Fighters. He’s going to come [to elections] wearing an EFF hat and shirt.”

Waters said the DA would not press charges regarding the sale of illegal guns because it was now in the police minister’s hands.

Gagiano has begun drawing up papers to take the party to court on defamation charges. “I’m gatvol,” she says.