Bankrupt Texas Gun Seller Could Get Reality TV Show

A bankrupt gun retailer and shooting range in suburban Houston that loudly filed for bankruptcy in June—blaming President Obama and bank executives on its sign in its front yard—could get an even bigger megaphone with a new reality television show.

Lawyers for Tactical Firearms, which filed for bankruptcy to stop foreclosure proceedings, said that the U.S. division of British production giant ITV Studios has approached manager Jeremy Alcede with a proposal to film the Katy, Texas-based shop’s operations, according to documents in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston. It’s unclear whether the business, which employs about 30 people, would be paid for opening itself up to film crews.

The proposed show on Tactical Firearms hasn’t been picked up yet by a cable channel, but it sure could fill the void of Second Amendment-related programming left when Discovery Channel canceled the “Sons of Guns” series about Louisiana’s Red Jacket Firearm company, whose founder was arrested on rape charges in August. The company later released a statement describing the allegations as “false charges.”

ITV Studios America has produced shows like TLC’s “Four Weddings“ reality show, where brides judge each other’s weddings, or Animal Planet’s “Rocky Mountain Bounty Hunters,” whose scruffy stars search for fugitives. It also produced one of CNBC’s first reality shows, “The Car Chasers.”

ITV Studios America’s Tom Lane, who is senior vice president of business and legal affairs, signed an agreement with Mr. Alcede that was filed to the bankruptcy court. He did not return a voicemail left at his Los Angeles office to talk about when the show could debut.

Mr. Alcede has been in the spotlight before. Shortly before the company’s bankruptcy, he told a local news station and the company’s website visitors that the business was being unfairly targeted by officials at Icon Bank of Texas NA.

Mr. Alcede, who owns 70% of the business, faced a deadline to repay loans of about $1.4 million, and bank executives said they would refinance the loans only if investor Steven Coe Wilson, who owns the remaining 30% of the company, was part of the deal. By that point, the partnership between Mr. Alcede and Mr. Wilson had eroded.

Mr. Alcede’s statements came as the Justice Department has been engaged in a sweeping investigation dubbed Operation Choke Point that has put pressure on banks to cut off accounts for alleged operators of fraud schemes. Critics including Republicans on Capitol Hill and some in the banking industry say the probe has resulted in a number of businesses losing their access to the banking system including, gun sellers, short-term lenders and credit-repair services.

This idea is loosely raised in a long post written by Mr. Alcede in a campaign to raise money for Tactical Firearms.

“What this system is trying to do to Tactical Firearms right now is a travesty of justice, and it’s just one more sign of the kind of punitive insanity we are seeing played out across this great nation by a network of anti-American individuals who are attempting to destroy the fabric of this nation one day at a time,” said the post on GoFundMe, which has raised $2,050 of its $6.5 million target.

Icon Bank officials deny that their moves have anything to do with Operation Choke Point, which officials said they learned about by googling it.

“Icon Bank is not in the business of arbitrarily canceling loans,” according to a statement provided to Bankruptcy Beat. “That would be a bad business decision and our priority is to keep our good customers.”

The store was set to be auctioned on July 1, but the company’s June 27 bankruptcy filing put that sale on hold. Shortly after the filing, a bankruptcy judge ruled that Mr. Alcede mismanaged the business and asked for new business plans.

“I can envision this business doing very well,” U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Jeff Bohm said at a hearing. “A lot of jobs are at stake and frankly to the extent that people want to be able to buy guns or want to be able to shoot guns….Right now, this business is providing those goods and services.”

Mr. Wilson has proposed to take over the business, pay some of its debt with $1.5 million but nothing to Mr. Alcede.

“Alcede has enjoyed more than enough time to fix the [company’s] problems, but he has instead chosen to blame everyone from Icon Bank to President Obama,” Mr. Wilson’s lawyers said earlier court papers.

-Alan Zibel contributed to this article.

Write to Katy Stech at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter at @KatyStech.