The Big Sandy Mountaineer -

The Gun Show over the past weekend provided an opportunity for locals to shop for guns, ammunition, and other shooting sports items. It also brought a lot of traffic to our community and benefitted out local businesses. From the restaurants, to The Motel, to The Grocery Store, the show brought money into our community as people came through to look at and buy guns.

Keith Hanson, who organized the event, explained that the show benefits both the vendors and the community businesses: “When my wife and I decided to do this show, as prior owners of the paper and prior business people on main street in Big Sandy, we wanted to make sure we supported the local businesses. We highly promote The Grocery Store, the three restaurants… the hotel, every aspect is what we try to promote. And trust me, every one of these vendors is thankful for the things these little towns do for them.”

The Motel was booked full for the weekend, with vendors staying the weekend for the event. Ronnie Simpson explained: “We’ve had clients that have come from all parts of Montana, even out of state, vendors who have stayed (at the motel) to sell guns here.” Ronnie went on to explain that special events in general typically result in increased business for The Motel: “Events like the gun show and the coyote hunt have definitely provided traffic throughout the town. It’s good. All business is good business.”

Keith explained that the increase in business for locals is natural with events like the gun show: “I’ve seen a lot of local business people at the show. They support me, and we support them. We have a tremendous amount of people here, and we don’t offer concessions. Therefore these folks, they gotta eat. The vendors, they gotta eat. The customers coming in have gotta eat. They go to the restaurants, they go to The Grocery Store. I think it’s a pretty big impact.”

The Mint saw a sharp increase in traffic, as the visitors and vendors who need to eat while visiting our town stopped in for meals: “We were busy. Lunch was super busy and all day. Prime rib last night was busy. It was steady all day. It was vendors and people coming in to check out the gun show. Starting right at 11 when we opened the door, we were steady all day.”

Mary Merrill also explained that the bakery saw an increase in traffic: “We were pretty steady yesterday with the gun show crowd and people going to the gun show. It was good. It was good business for the community.” The gun show even prompted her to run special hours to accommodate guests to our town. “We’re not usually open Sundays, and we opened Sunday 8 to 12. Just to kinda help facilitate food and coffee options for people. It’s good. We’ve done this before for special occasions.” Special events in the community “are definitely a good thing for bringing people in. It’s neat to see how the community pulls together to make this sort of thing happen.”

All of the vendors I spoke with offered rave reviews for the hospitality they encountered at our local businesses. It was difficult to miss the new faces in The Grocery Store or in line to buy coffee. Many of the folks I met in those settings were friendly and grateful for the amenities our town provides.

The increase in business from outside of the community is important for our town because it involves dollars being spent locally. For every dollar spent at a locally owned business, 70 cents stays in the community. In addition, those dollars tend to circulate through the local economy longer, taking care of locals. This is why it’s so important to run events like the gun show in our community, bringing others here to stimulate our local economy.