Residents of Goleta, an affluent coastal community near Santa Barbara, California, have staged protests and launched a petition after Goodland Guns announced it would open a new store on Hollister Avenue directly next to the Here We Grow Early Learning Center. Parents and locals argue the location, on a route children use to walk to nearby Ellwood Elementary School, is entirely inappropriate for a firearms retailer, and have called on city officials to intervene before the shop's grand opening.

Owner Dan Ashton says the move was forced by circumstance rather than choice, after his landlord at the previous Old Town Goleta site, where the business had traded for 11 years, gave him just 30 days' notice and demanded double the rent. He signed a 25-year lease on the Hollister Avenue site, a former 7-Eleven, following a three-year search complicated by California's strict regulations and a shortage of suitable commercial space. The store held a soft opening on 10 August, with a grand opening still planned for 5 September; Ashton says he has installed a privacy screen along the shared fence with the daycare and held talks with concerned neighbours, insisting he wants to "be good neighbours" despite the ongoing backlash.