Tuscaloosa City Council rejects bid to revoke Guns and Ammo business license after contested hearing

The Tuscaloosa City Council on Aug. 7, 2025, voted 4–2 to deny a motion to revoke the business license and the privilege to renew the license of Guns and Ammo LLC, a firearms retailer owned by Joshua Wakefield, following a three-hour public hearing and testimony from police investigators and the store owner.

The council hearing, conducted under Tuscaloosa City Code sec. 7-33, was prompted by a police investigation that led to a search warrant at Guns and Ammo and 26 municipal citations tied to record-keeping and secondhand-dealer rules. City attorneys told the council the shop had repeatedly failed to follow the city’s secondhand-dealer requirements and had bought firearms from a convicted felon; the business and its attorney said the problems were clerical and that Wakefield cooperated with investigators.

City Attorney (identified in materials provided to the council) urged revocation as a public-safety measure, saying the city could prove that on multiple occasions the shop bought guns that were later identified as stolen and that staff continued transactions after being warned. “We’re asking you to revoke Mister Wakefield’s business license, not just because he’s a bad bookkeeper, but because the whole way he operates his business jeopardizes public safety, and he couldn’t care less,” the city attorney said during opening remarks.

Tuscaloosa Police Department Investigator Jeffrey Kervin, assigned to the FBI Safe Streets task force, testified about the city’s secondhand-dealer rules and about specific incidents the department investigated. “When you buy a secondhand good, you have to upload those transactions to LEADS Online. By noon the next day, you have to take a colored photograph of the person who’s selling the item. You also have to record the vehicle, make and model that the person was driving,” Kervin told the council, describing the ordinance’s requirements and why investigators use the uploads to identify stolen property and sellers.

Kervin said investigators traced several purchases at Guns and Ammo to a convicted felon, Christopher Collins, who had a prior armed-robbery conviction. Kervin described seizing a stolen shotgun that Collins had sold to the store and said that, five days after the store was informed Collins was a convicted felon, the store purchased another firearm from him. Kervin also described an encounter in which the store manager attempted to have investigators trespassed while they were attempting to inspect evidence. The investigator said the department ultimately issued 26 municipal citations after executing a warrant.

Chief Brent Blankley confirmed police participation in the warrant execution and said the number of officers used was meant to maximize officer safety and speed evidence processing. Blankley said the team included ballistic and cyber specialists to process numerous firearms and digital evidence.

Joshua Wakefield, the store owner, and his attorney, Josh Swords, disputed the characterization that Wakefield had operated negligently. Wakefield and Swords said the business has operated in Tuscaloosa for more than a decade and that many of the cited failures were clerical: photos and uploads to the third-party service LEADS Online were not completed on schedule in some instances but were available and later provided. Wakefield said federal changes that took effect Aug. 4, 2025, (the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act implementation) changed dealers’ ability to query certain databases; before that date, dealers relied on law enforcement to identify stolen guns.

“We had the guns in the store and they were safe,” Wakefield said, describing the shop’s approach to holding secondhand firearms pending required checks. He told the council the store had voluntarily provided video and other materials to investigators shortly after requests were made.

Council members also heard about the consequences of the alleged failures. Investigator Kervin described at least one customer who later was arrested in a neighboring county after purchasing a gun that later was identified as stolen; Kervin said that customer “almost lost his job.” The city attorney argued those outcomes were evidence of risk to public safety.

Members of the public largely spoke in favor of Wakefield during the public-comment portion. More than a dozen residents, customers and employees described the owner as law-abiding and the business as a longstanding local retailer. Several employees and customers described Wakefield as cooperative with law enforcement and said the cited lapses were clerical or training issues rather than evidence of a dangerous operation.

At the hearing the city attorney sought revocation of the license; the council discussed the evidence and then voted. The council motion to revoke failed on a 2–4 vote (Yes to revoke: 2; No: 4). Following the vote the mayor declared the revocation denied and the meeting adjourned.

Clarifying details recorded in the hearing record included: police executed a search warrant at Guns and Ammo and temporarily seized 28 firearms; investigators issued 26 municipal citations (21 relating to required photo uploads to LEADS Online and five relating to alleged violations of the 10-day hold for secondhand goods); investigators identified a convicted felon who had sold multiple firearms to the store in June–August 2025 (including a gun later determined to be stolen); and investigators documented an interaction in which the store manager attempted to have investigators trespassed during an evidence inspection.

The council hearing and vote do not resolve criminal charges or municipal-court citations that remain pending; several speakers noted those matters must proceed through the courts or municipal process. Councilmembers did not adopt an alternative sanction during the meeting.

The outcome preserves Wakefield’s license for now. The record shows active municipal enforcement and possible court processes remain; city attorneys and law enforcement indicated those avenues will continue independent of the council’s decision.

Ending: The council’s decision stops short of disciplinary action by the council, but the municipal citations and any concurrent criminal investigations remain unresolved in court and municipal filings. The council did not set a follow-up date during the hearing.