A Florida Gun Range Wants to Serve You Beer with Your Bullets

As any restaurateur—or Martha Stewart wannabe—will tell you, ambiance is arguably just as important as food is in the making of a memorable meal. Even a vat of beurre blanc prepared by the ghost of Escoffier would be lessened by the addition of fluorescent lighting and a few Creed songs.

So it would only make sense that a true gourmand would seek out an elevated mise en scène for his or her dining experience. Like a shooting range where several hundred rounds of smoking ammunition are being simultaneously shot. Right? And what would such a dining experience be like without the addition of some fine libations to accompany the meal?

Well, fear not, you gun-toting gourmands out there. Volusia Top Gun, a gun range in Daytona Beach, Florida, has got you covered.

The Daytona Beach city commissioners have just approved the gun-store-and-shooting-range's petition to serve booze at their restaurant.

Sure, the Daytona commissioners had some safety concerns. But only one commissioner, Ruth Trager, voted thumbs down. Her concern was how the restaurant-shooting range will know whether someone is sober or a felon. She's clearly never shot the cork off a bottle of Prosecco!

Ron Perkinson owns the Florida gun range—a Class III dealer, which means it can trade in things like machine guns and silencers. Need a shotgun suppressor? No problem. Need a shot of Jack? Got that, too.

Perkinson plans to turn a vacant building on his property—separated from the gun range by a retail space—into an "upscale restaurant" that serves alcohol. The idea is to maximize business, of course. He told a local news affiliate that he hopes by selling liquor he will be able to keep customers in his store after they've gone shooting.

The Daytona commissioners were evidently a tad wary at first, but Perkinson told them he'll "keep a watch list of customers who may cause trouble and will call police when necessary." Phew.

Last June, Perkinson said, "[Workers] will be trained to visually look at the person, look at their eyes [and] look at their pupils, just like an officer would." Just like that—but of course, the employees of the gun range are not officers.

Even Perkinson acknowledges that his idea is not a no-brainer: "To the critics, I say, you're right. I'm not trying to mix the two. I'm trying to give you a nice meal before you go home. If you choose to have an alcoholic beverage and go home, that's on you. It's no different than them leaving here and going to Outback."

According to the Daily News, guns will not be allowed in the restaurant. There will be a three-drink limit and IDs will be scanned, ensuring that alcohol-imbibing customers will not be allowed to enter the shooting range area for a period of 24 hours. (How Perkinson's protocols will be policed remains to be seen.)

Perkinson points out that his will not be the first shooting range to serve alcohol. Last year, the Wilshire Gun Range opened in Oklahoma City. At the Range Café, you can have "locked and loaded nachos" and "pepper jack bullets"—along with beer, wine, liquor and spirits.

According to Wilshire's website, their alcohol policy is "bulletproof." The rules are as follows: "Patrons are required to secure all personal firearms outside the building in the same way it was brought to the store prior to consumption of alcoholic beverages. Consumption of alcohol requires scan of Driver's License barcode which then denies guest access to any range for the remainder of that day."

The Oklahoma gun range's general manager Brad Carroll told the Daily News, "We haven't had a single incident. It's gone well. We have had people try to get on the range after drinking here, and they were stopped by protocols," he said.

So now visitors to Daytona can see the world-famous Speedway and party with the spring breakers. Or have a drink at the shooting range.