Orange County Fair officials have decided to table a request to pre-approve gun show contracts for next year's fair. The pre-approval plan was seen by some as a strategy for circumventing a state law that would ban gun shows at California fairgrounds.
At a meeting of the O.C. Fair Board of Directors on Thursday, officials also declined to send a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom alerting him to potential problems with the new bill, S.B. 264, which may affect fair revenues.
If granted, the pre-approvals would have allowed for certain gun shows to be exempted from S.B. 264, which would take effect in January 2022.
Both decisions were rendered by a majority vote of the board following a discussion that "grew highly politicial and, at times, contentious," according to Voice of O.C.
S.B. 264's sponsor, State Sen. Dave Min of Irvine, spoke at Thursday's meeting and reportedly warned fair officials against pre-approval requests by gun show promoters, claiming "the California Bureau of Firearms has repeatedly found evidence of so-called straw sales and other sales of unlicensed guns at gun shows, including at the O.C. fairgrounds."
Rose Ann Sharp, founder of the gun control advocacy group NeverAgainCA, told board members that by voting to pre-approve gun show contracts, they would be "sending a signal that we value the sale of firearms above the lives of Americans."
Tiffany Cheuvront of the California Rifle and Pistol Association disputed those characterizations, telling the board the O.C. Fair was "not a location where criminals are getting their firearms."
She said "not one criminal activity in Orange County is linked to the Orange County gun show," and assured board members that promoters had sufficient security measures in place to prevent unlicensed sales.
According to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, sale of unlicensed firearms at gun shows have persisted even where security measures are in place. Experimental studies of gun shows found sellers participating in bona fide shows were still willing to participate in transactions they believed were "straw" purchases, right under the noses of show organizers.
Critics of the board's decision to table pre-approvals were not solely concerned with gun rights, however. The Voice reported that gun shows have generated about $7 million in total revenue for the O.C. Fair since 1996.
Participants in Thusday's board meeting voiced concerns that blocking gun shows from the fair could negatively impact profits from which the county ultimately benefits. The O.C. Fair is California's largest and most profitable county fair.
"Yes, change is hard," Board Director Ashleigh Aitken, who opposes contract pre-approvals, said before the vote. "But sometimes change is the right thing to do."
