One Stop Shopping in Sonora

( Valentino/SFGATE)

Guns and booze can be bought together at the Sportsman in Sonora.

The Sportsman — the last standing business in California where patrons can simultaneously buy a beer and a firearm — is encased in a historic brick building between the town’s main drag and its police station. The store-and-bar is as much a tourist destination as it’s a living room for some in the gateway town. On a weekday afternoon, two locals nursed Michelob Ultras beneath a television showing a Giants game while another man put down the next installment on a deposit for a rifle.

Storekeeper Steve Kane toggled between the two sides of the slim room. One half of the tawny-walled store is a pub with numerous framed photos of past and current customers. The other side is reserved for firearms — pistols and rifles — contained behind glass casings. A six-shooter goes for $250 while a .22-caliber rifle costs more than $600...

A fixture of Sonora but an oddity for the rest of the state, the Sportsman routinely draws tourists from around the world who enter with a wide-eyed gaze before Kane warmly welcomes them in. “I tell them, ‘This is a unicorn.’ You’ll go your whole trip in the United States and never see this,” he said. “And being in California, that’s what makes it crazy.”

The Sportsman also sells cigarettes, which means that it is overseen by a single Federal agency (Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms). Is this what is known as a regulatory advantage?