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Carroll County Circuit Judge Scott Jackson has denied an appeal from a Eureka Springs business owner who was seeking a conditional use permit to operate a gun and pawn shop inside the city limits.
At the conclusion of a hearing that lasted nearly four hours on Thursday, May 16, in the courtroom of the Carroll County Western District Courthouse in Eureka Springs, Jackson granted defense attorney Sara Monoghan’s motion for a directed verdict, saying he would not overturn the decisions of the Eureka Springs planning commission and city council, which had denied Grubb’s application for the conditional use permit.
Jackson rejected an argument by Whitfield Hyman, the attorney for plaintiff Keeling Grubb, that the objections of Eureka Springs residents who told the city council they were opposed to Grubb’s application “don’t matter.”
“I’m sorry, but these people’s feelings don’t matter,” Hyman said in his final arguments. “What matters is the law.”
Jackson cited a state law in saying: “The people’s feelings do matter.”
After the hearing, Grubb said he would reapply for a conditional use permit, while Hyman said he planned to appeal Jackson’s decision.
Defendants in the lawsuit were the City of Eureka Springs and Mayor Butch Berry in his official capacity.
Hyman called a steady procession of witnesses to the stand during the May 16 hearing, including current and former members of the planning commission and city council as well as the owner of the building where Grubb had planned to operate the gun and pawn shop. Instead, Grubb sells sporting goods at that location while selling firearms at a second location just outside the city limits on Huntsville Road.
While both Grubb’s landlord and the operator of a business in the same plaza both said they had no objection to Grubb operating a gun shop at that location — as did two members of the planning commission — three city council members said they would not vote for a gun shop anywhere in the city.
Hyman filed the lawsuit in July 2023, a month after the Eureka Springs City Council rejected Grubb’s appeal of the city planning commission’s denial of his request for a CUP.
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