The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Aiming to end the noise
About 65 people gather to protest skeet shooting that takes place from November through March at Kirtland Country Club
Residents from multiple communities who oppose skeet shooting that’s conducted at Kirtland Country Club decided to share their views on that subject with passing motorists on March 13.
A total of about 70 people assembled on both sides of Kirtland Road at the club’s entrance, starting at 9 a.m. For about an hour and a half, they toted signs and chanted phrases that called for an end to the skeet shooting, while condemning the noise that the activity generates in a residential area.
Kirtland Country Club conducts skeet shoots from November through March. Those events are scheduled from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays and noon to 4 p.m. each Sunday.
The skeet-shooting sessions have been taking place for about six years. Kirtland Country Club, which actually is located in Willoughby, received permission to do skeet shooting by securing a conditional-use permit from that city’s Planning Commission in July 2015.
Noise from the skeet shooting adversely affects not only residents of Willoughby, but also people who live nearby in Waite Hill, Kirtland, Kirtland Hills and Willoughby Hills, Kirtland City Councilman Scott Haymer said in a news release issued by organizers of the protest.
“The gunfire is loud and constant,” Haymer said, estimating that more than 500 families are impacted by the noise. “It makes it impossible to enjoy any outdoor activities and it penetrates our homes. There’s nowhere to hide.”
Residents who took part in the peaceful protest on March 13 carried signs demanding that Kirtland Country Club “End the Noise” and stop hurting veterans, children and families with the sounds of gunshots during skeet-shooting season.
Protesters displayed those signs to passing motorists and joined together in repeatedly shouting the phrase “End the Noise!” throughout the event.
Bart Williams, who lives in Waite Hill, was among the many residents at the March 13 protest who are able to hear skeet-shooting noise distinctly from their homes.
“I don’t think that any of the club members have gone and stood in these people’s houses that are right near where all the noise is going and really understood how bad it would be, if that was your house every Saturday and every Sunday, for five straight months,” he said.
Mitch Look, who lives in Kirtland, said noise from the club’s shooting takes a toll on his wife, who’s prone to getting horrible migraine headaches. That condition becomes more severe when there’s a stretch of continuous gunshots on the weekends during the club’s skeet season.
“Why would (club leaders and members) continue to do something that’s physically damaging to people around you?” Look asked. “It’s not just emotional, it’s not just mental, it’s physical. There are people who have physical reactions to this.”
Kirtland Country Club General Manager Mark Petzing issued a statement on the organization’s behalf in response to the March 13 protest.
Petzing said the club has taken a number of proactive measures to monitor and minimize sound coming from the skeet-shooting range, including:
• Working very closely with the city of Willoughby to apply for and receive the appropriate operating permit which dictates the location and direction of the range.
“The range is located where the city required it to be located and is pointed in the direction the city required,” he said.
• Hiring a nationally recognized range acoustics expert to design the range in a way that helps decrease the sound from the skeet program leaving the property.
• Hiring a well-known local environmental consulting firm to conduct sound tests at the range in 2015, 2016 and most recently in
January 2019.
“The sound levels from the 2016 test were significantly lower than the legal requirements; and, the 2019 sound levels are even significantly lower than those, a direct result of the modifications we have made to the range,” he noted.
Petzing said the club provided this information “not to minimize the concerns and effects on our neighbors, but to demonstrate that Kirtland Country Club has thoroughly reviewed the concerns shared with us and have actively and constructively worked to address them.”
“We continue to look for ways to mitigate the sound from the range,” he said.
Williams said that unless Kirtland Country Club changes its mind and discontinues skeet shooting on its property, organizers of the March 13 protest plan to hold additional events intended to raise public awareness about the situation. He’d like to see a resolution reached sooner, rather than later.
“So I hope that the country club will decide to say, ‘You know what? Let’s do the right thing and let’s be a good neighbor. Let’s stop this and do something else.’