This wasn’t the welcome party Nick Blitz imagined for his newly opened gun store: over a dozen Essex residents across the street waved signs reading, “Daycare and guns don’t mix!” and “This location is wrong! Find another spot!”

The Tuesday afternoon demonstration, which was largely quiet save for the honks of passing cars, marked the community’s first rally against gun shop Bmore Tactical, which they say opened without warning in early December across Old Eastern Avenue from St. Stephens Christian Academy, a local learning center and day care which enrolls about 80 students.

“It’s not about the gun store so much as it is about process and location,” said Rev. Christopher Burnett, who leads the nearby St. Stephen’s AME Church, which is affiliated with the day care that hosts about 80 kids.

Burnett and other residents say they only heard of the gun shop a few weeks ago when the owners hung a sign displaying the business’s name.

“To put a gun store right across the street from a day care and school is extremely alarming,” Burnett said.

“Parents feel just uncomfortable dropping their kids off next to a gun store,” Burnett added.

They’ve told him they’re afraid the gun shop could be a catalyst for gun violence in the area, particularly in the wake of Monday’s shooting at a Wisconsin Christian school where a 15-year-old girl shot and killed a teacher and another student and injured six others before killing herself.

“I don’t know how to ease that concern,” Burnett said.

But Blitz said his shop was not a safety hazard to the community. People typically come to the shop to find another means of protection, not seeking to attack people, he added.

“I’ve had young women come in, and they’re like, ‘I’m afraid to go through the parking lot at night. What do I do?’” Blitz said.

His answer? Buy a gun.

“Our guns come in boxes and bags,” Blitz said. “[Customers are] not walking outside showing off their new gun. People are very discreet.”

This, he said, meant his store would not prompt casualties in the community.

Homicides in Baltimore County have decreased since 2023. This year, the county logged 12 homicides through August, police data shows, a 43% decrease from 21 homicides in the same period last year.

Essex, though, historically has had an outsized share of homicides compared to the rest of the county, police data shows, and residents are worried the gun shop could worsen this trend.

“It’s scary,” said Kim Ellis, a teacher at St. Stephens Christian Academy. “There’s plenty of space where this building can go. That does not have to be here, in proximity of a day care, a school and a church.”

The neighborhood dispute comes on the heels of zoning disputes across the county in which residents have protested land use for projects including a controversial power line across the northern part of the county, a crematory in White Marsh and an existing boarding house in Essex.

These disputes usually happen in a public forum where residents can relay concerns about how a property’s use might impact a neighborhood, though these hearings typically happen before a business moves in. Blitz said local and state agencies gave a heads-up to a local community association weeks before the store opened. If the residents wanted to protest their move there, that was the time to do it, he said.

Councilmember Todd Crandell, who oversees Essex and helps control zoning plans as part of the local government, did not reply Tuesday to a request for comment.

By now, Blitz said he has poured a lot of money into redoing the floors and windows and installing additional amenities like security cameras in his new shop, though he wouldn’t specify how much he spent. He doesn’t want to move out, and said his customers enjoy the shop.

The protest, he said, is the first time he’s heard anything from these residents.

“Look, we could sit down at Pizza John’s down the street and ask, ‘Hey, what are your concerns?’ Let me put you at ease,” Blitz said.