Riverhead gun shop cancels rifle raffle for volleyball team after state gaming panel ruled it 'unlawful'

The owner of a Riverhead gun shop canceled a rifle raffle to raise money for a high school volleyball team after the state gaming commission ruled it would be unlawful.

Joseph Oliver, who owns JJ Armory in downtown Riverhead, announced the cancellation in a Facebook post on Friday, writing he had "been instructed that this fundraiser must be canceled, and I am required to refund every single person who participated."

Oliver had been selling $20 raffle tickets to win a Ruger Pistol-Caliber Carbine, a 9-mm semiautomatic rifle, to raise money for his 14-year-old daughter’s varsity volleyball team. Riverhead school district officials swiftly denounced the raffle, saying they did not sanction it and would decline funds it raised.

State gaming officials previously told Newsday that JJ Armory's raffle was unsanctioned, and only "religious, charitable and nonprofit organizations" can hold raffles to raise funds for charity.

"We shut it down right away," Riverhead schools superintendent Robert Hagan said in an interview on Saturday. "These two things don’t go together. It just doesn’t."

Hagan, who is new to the district this year, had been speaking at a preplanned meeting at a Heart of Riverhead Civic Association meeting at the library on Saturday.

Residents at the meeting said canceling the raffle was a good move.

Cindy Clifford, the association’s president, said the organization wasn’t taking a pro- or anti-gun stance, but the rifle raffle was "such a mixed signal when you have kids that are having to go to school and be concerned and they have to do active shooter drills."

Oliver did not respond to requests for comment on Saturday. On social media, he wrote: "This is not the outcome I wanted and it breaks my heart" and encouraged his supporters to donate money directly to the volleyball booster club.

Instead, the business said it would collect cash donations for the team — unrelated to the rifle raffle — and they had already raised more than $1,000 for new uniform pants, according to the Facebook post.