A Dededo shooting range was forced to shut down by the government recently. The owner sharing frustrations over the unexplained closure, which he says was done without due process.

"I mean, you’re operating your business and all of a sudden, they come and they tell you got to shut down and they don't even explain why," said John Sablan.

Shut down without due process. That’s what Sablan, the president and CEO of Sportsland Shooting Range, says happened to his family-run business. "The short explanation is it was shut down due to a non-renewal of a business license. Now of course there’s a backstory to that," he said.

To renew his business license, the Department of Revenue & Taxation required him to be reinspected and approved by several government agencies, including the Department of Land Management.

He says that’s where his application was stalled without written explanation. "I approached the Department of Land Management asking to meet with the director. And my calls and requests have never been answered. I then got to speak to the chief planner to find out what actually the problem is so that I can try to address the issues but she could not give me in writing what the actual problems were," he added.

But Sablan believes the closure started from a neighbor's complaint filed with the Guam Land Use Commission over a year ago. Sablan said, "I was told by several people in the government to include the Department of Land Management that it started with a noise complaint. Or that there's a noise complaint that they’re investigating."

A commission meeting from last July detailing a homeowner’s concerns including noise pollution, stray bullets, and several other allegations. The complainant requesting for Sablan to cease operations then. Now it’s a reality that he says has negative repercussions for the community.

"This is the only venue for our citizens to partake in a shooting sport or for law enforcement. We get a lot of law enforcement agencies coming out here to train or qualify their officers," he said.

"And also we have five employees that will not be working after Friday. Some of them have family you know? They have young kids and this is their sole income that they rely on."

The issue reaching all the way to the Guam Attorney General’s Office, with AG Douglas Moylan saying, "We must remember this is a business. They are earning money off a license that the government of Guam has awarded them. The other concern is we obviously don’t want anybody getting a bullet in their back because of a stray bullet, a ricochet or something because you got a high density district of Dededo and this idea that people need to live in their homes safely."

Moylan hosted a roundtable discussion tomorrow morning, inviting neighbors who made complaints, Sablan, and government officials involved. "The main purpose of why we are doing it is to gather sufficient information and facts in order for us to develop the legal question of what exactly is the AG’s role on whether we can assist the license applicant – this is a license renewal situation from what I understand – or confirm if the government’s actions need further guidance," he said.

The roundtable will help draft a written legal opinion and whether the matter could be resolved in the administration level or if it will need to be taken to the legislature. Sablan noted, "I'm going to make every effort to be there and state our case. We want to reiterate that we followed every requirement that GovGuam

has put out for us to reopen this range."