Public Safety

Smoking And Guns At The Del Mar Fairground

By Alison St John / Reporter

Published January 14, 2013 at 3:00 AM PST

This story was published more than 11 years ago.

Crossroads of the West gunshow is scheduled to visit the Del Mar Fairgrounds in March 2013.

The Del Mar Fairgrounds has hosted gun shows for more than two decades. No assault weapons are sold, that would be illegal in California, and the events are highly regulated.

Smoking And Guns At The Del Mar Fairground

A petition to stop gun shows at the Del Mar Fairgrounds is gaining momentum.

But a group called “Stop the Del Mar Gun Shows” formed after the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School. They have collected more than 1,000 signatures on their petition so far.

Member Bud Emerson said the Del Mar Fair Board recently agreed to ban smoking at the Del Mar Fair.

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“So if they think smoking is bad, tell me how that compares to a gun being bad,” Emerson said. “We’ve got to be consistent here with our values. For them to say, 'because it’s legal they can’t do anything,' they CAN do something.“

Linda Zweig, spokesperson for the Fair Board, said selling guns at a well-regulated public gun show is one of the safest ways to sell them.

She said the change to make the Del Mar Fair a non-smoking event took years of public pressure.

“It was requested for a very long time by a committee of concerned citizens,” she said, “ and they came to not one, not two, but years of board meetings, during the public comment period.“

Emerson said the group “Stop the Del Mar Gun Shows” plans to mobilize its growing supporters to lobby elected officials around the region.

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Alison St John

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Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.