Near the end of the Monday, March 25, Township Council meeting, several East Hanover residents complained to the Council about the Livingston Police Firing Range, which is located in close proximity to them.That shooting range is used by police officers to train and is located off Eisenhower Parkway behind Lithos Estiatorio restaurant, bordering the Passaic River. The range has been in use for more than seven decades. Town records show that the deed to the parcel - Lot 20, Block 68 - was given to the town in 1961 for the express purpose of use as a pistol range. Purchase of the land, which had previously been the site of the Knotty Pine Bar, was authorized by Ordinance No. 31-1961.Township manager Barry Lewis said it has been used as a shooting range consistently since the sale, with the current structure erected in the 1980s. Police officers in Livingston and nearby towns use the range to complete required firearms training.Complaints about the range appear to have ramped up recently, afterNew Jersey State Police (NJSP) officers were permitted to use it for training, causing an influx of hundreds of additional people firing weapons, including automatic rifles. Lewis said that this was “a mistake that would be coming to an end.”In all, 71 Livingston officers receive firearm training twice a year at the range, about three hours and 200 rounds each time. There are additional training requirements for rifles, which require four training sessions per year. Neighboring West Essex police departments also use the range to fulfill their similar requirements. Once the NJSP was welcomed in, however, hundreds of troopers were added to that list, with East Hanover residents saying it sounded like they were under constant fire in their own backyards.Livingston officials noted that the agreement withNJSP coincided with the influx of complaints. Deputy Mayor Ed Meinhardt, for instance, said on Monday that in his 11 years on the Council, this was the first time he had heard a complaint about the gun range. For that reason, he is optimistic that telling the NJSP they can no longer use the range will take care of the extra noise, and that the range will then be able to operate as it has for decades.“I don’t think people fully appreciated how many State Police officers were going to come and train,” Lewis said. “Somewhere along the way, someone should have pinned down the details.”Residents ...
