Community supports local business rebuilding after fire

Firearms are a divisive issue. They figure prominently in the history of Connecticut, the state that Colt, Winchester, Sturm & Ruger, and a long list of other arms manufacturers and munitions producers once called home.

Those same companies have an uneasy relationship with the state. Many have shuttered their factories in Connecticut, seeking cheaper workforces elsewhere, although the relationship is also continually strained by the tragedy of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary mass shooting continues to be litigated in both court rooms and American culture and law. Some of the country’s strictest gun measures were imposed in the wake of the shooting as well.

Yet those larger narratives were overshadowed in Stratford by a community coming together in the wake of a fire devastating a local business.

A fire broke out at Stratford Guns & Ammo on April 17, 2023. The fire started in the shooting range and caused substantial damage to the building, closing not just the indoor firing range but also the shooting sports store, imperiling the family business that Lorenzo Whilby launched in 2021. When it opened, Stratford Guns & Ammo first Black-owned shooting range in Connecticut and only the eighth in the entire country.

A year to the day later in 2024, Whilby was joined by his family, staff, and members of both Stratford’s government and Chamber of Commerce to cut the ribbon for a grand reopening.

While giving a tour of the new and heavily upgraded firing range Whilby expressed deep gratitude to Stratford’s Fire and Police departments for their exemplary response to a dangerous fire.

“I think we have one of the fastest responses to a fire in history: four minutes,” Whilby said, standing next to Stratford Mayor Laura Hoydick. “That was a long four minutes, but that four minutes was worth it. We had the police department respond in three minutes. I don’t think anywhere else around here would have responded the way they responded.”

“I remember that night, the mayor came down and she hugged me and she started crying,” Whilby recalled with welling eyes as the mayor patted his arm. “She said, Lorenzo, this is not done. It’s not over. It’s a setback. Build it back bigger and better.”

According to Whilby he did just that, with help from both public officials and neighboring businesses.

“The community was there for me,” Whilby said. “Not only the gun community but everybody in the community my neighbors, everybody.”

Stratford Steel, located just a stone’s throw away, provided the custom fabrication for the bays in the shooting range, the armor protecting the new motorized target holders from stray shots, and other structural support.

“I’m a big gun guy so it fit naturally,” said Matt Bagon of Stratford Steel, noting that Whilby had gotten to know neighboring businesses well before the fire. “But our shop is just down the street and Lorenzo has been really tight with a lot of the businesses around here. Once we met we wound up talking about what we can do and how we can help each other and it went from there.”

Pack-Timco, located just across Honeyspot Avenue provided support with installing the HVAC systems in the new firing range which Whilby said were so effective that users reported they couldn’t even smell their own gun smoke.

The range is equipped with extensive soundproofing and a sloped backstop composed of rubber pellets that can safely capture rounds as large as .308, commonly used in hunting rifles.

“Stratford is a great community,” said Mayor Hoydick, “but Lorenzo is a great person and a great business owner. I think all of Stratford supported him because he would give the shirt off his back to support them.”

“Unfortunately we focus on when somebody is in trouble,” Hoydick added. However,  she said, the support and sense of community on display during the reopening are the norm in Stratford.