Here We Grow Early Learning Center plans to permanently close its Goleta childcare and preschool campus next to Goodland Guns in late December.

The facility, described as having “an intimate and magical feel,” will shutter its doors on Dec. 31 after enrollment numbers plummeted following the gun shop’s relocation next door, according to Heather Robbins, owner and director. 

“I just had such big dreams for it,” Robbins said. 

A large Radius Commercial Real Estate “For Lease” sign has replaced the center’s banner at the front of the building at 7433 Hollister Ave.

The school’s staff has already begun dismantling areas of the site, including moving equipment from the preschool classrooms to Here We Grow’s Turnpike Road campus. 

“It hurts their heart, hurts my heart,” Robbins said. “They worked so hard to get it ready and make it inviting for the kids.”

Here We Grow opened its Hollister Avenue location in January after closing its Modoc Road campus in 2025. 

“It took us a year to find this place,” Robbins said.

She plans to relocate the enrolled children from the Hollister Avenue school to the Turnpike Road campus, which is currently “full to the brim,” she said.

That school site has 42 students and more than a dozen infants on the waitlist. 

She also hopes to keep and move many of her long-term staff to the Turnpike Road site.

“It doesn’t feel right to let them go just because the school didn’t make it,” she said. 

Goodland Guns previously operated in Old Town Goleta, near the Goleta Community Center and Rainbow School, before moving to western Goleta and officially opening in September.

The move sparked outrage among community members, and some Here We Grow parents threatened to unenroll their children during a community meeting to protest the move in August. 

Here We Grow’s director, Crista Trujillo, told Noozhawk in August that hearing that people wanted to unenroll was “heartbreaking.”

That threat “almost immediately” became a reality, Robbins said. The facility, which once had 14 children enrolled, lost half of its enrollment and saw zero new enrollments, she said.

In August, she tried to push enrollment by hosting open houses, marketing the school site online and calling people on the waitlist. 

“Nobody was coming to the tours, nobody enrolled — not a single person,” she said.

The gun shop and childcare facility have been operating next to each other since September, when Goodland Guns officially opened.

“We don’t really notice them at all,” Robbins said. “It’s more the perceived feeling of safety that parents aren’t getting with them next door.”

Yet, she knew “instinctively” the two businesses could not successfully coexist. 

“I know that having a reminder of this thing that is plaguing America is terrifying to all parents, right in their faces, all the time,” she said.

The former 7-Eleven spot was not the first choice for Dan Ashton, Goodland Guns owner, he told concerned community members in August. 

He said he struggled for two years to find a location to relocate his business, and the site next to the childcare facility is “what worked with the city” and was approved by the city. 

Robbins said she understood that struggle as a business owner, as childcare facilities have certain square footage requirements.

“So it makes it really challenging in Santa Barbara, where there isn’t space for anybody to find a spot,” she said. 

Some Here We Grow Early Learning Center staff first saw signs pointing toward a gun shop moving in and alerted Robbins.

Robbins expected Goleta would “shut it down,” but after doing some research, she discovered that the city has no specific buffers for gun shops and schools, which prompted her to launch an online petition in August to protest the relocation.

“That’s when it all kind of set in; there’s literally nothing I can do about it,” she said.

In Goleta, gun shops fall under general retail use with no specific standards, permitting requirements or location criteria, meaning gun shops could operate in four commercial zones. 

In response to the community concerns about Goodland Guns moving next to a childcare center, the City Council passed a temporary ban on new gun shops so staff can research sensitive uses and buffers to inform possible permanent regulations. 

Robbins said she tried to reach out to Goleta staff for financial support to keep the campus afloat, build a bigger fence or find a new site for the childcare facility. Instead, the office offered financial counseling help and connected her with business support resources.

“The problem was not my marketing, and it wasn’t my financial planning,” Robbins said. 

Goleta spokeswoman Kelly Hoover confirmed to Noozhawk that the city manager’s office connected Robbins with Women’s Economic Ventures and Children’s Resource & Referral of Santa Barbara County.

Opening another school site is not on the table for Robbins right now, she told Noozhawk. 

“It’s going to take me so long to recover financially that I need to just focus on the one,” she said.