Bangor committee considers allowing pellet guns for cemetery gopher control, asks city to update firearms zone maps

Members of the Bangor City firearms advisory committee discussed whether to recommend changes to the city’s firearms-discharge ordinance after a request from Mount Hope Cemetery to use pellet guns to control gophers.

The committee meeting focused on three linked issues: whether pellet guns should remain listed as firearms in the city code, whether cemeteries should receive a site-specific exemption or a temporary permit process, and a separate recommendation that the city update the official zone 1/zone 2 maps used to interpret the ordinance.

The discussion began when a committee member read a request from Mount Hope Cemetery about an employee “struggling with gophers” and noted the city ordinance currently defines pellet-type weapons as firearms. The member said the ordinance’s current mapping and language appear to date from the early 1990s and can be ambiguous when applied to present property lines and roads. “There’s a simple request: what are our options?” the committee member said.

Committee members and police staff described several options the group could recommend to Bangor City Council: remove pellet guns from the municipal definition of firearms; create a narrow cemetery exemption; adjust zone…