San Francisco's only gun store can resume selling firearms as early as November after the Police Department approved a conditional permit Wednesday, first requiring the store to beef up security measures before it reopens.

Sgt. William Coggan, who presided over the three-member panel that approved the retail permit, said opponents of High Bridge Arms on Mission Street near Valencia Street had failed to offer evidence backing their assertion that the store brought crime to the neighborhood.

"High Bridge appears to be a reasonably well-run business," Coggan said of the shop, which opened in the late 1950s. "And even with all the restrictions and limits San Francisco puts on the store, High Bridge has the legal right to sell guns."

Steven Alcairo, manager of High Bridge Arms, said the store's owners would happily meet the department's request for increased video surveillance and waist-high barriers outside the shop to thwart any would-be thief who might try crashing a car through the front window.

"It's a fair request," Alcairo said. "It's about following the letter of the law, and that's what we do."

The store's owners had closed High Bridge Arms in January and hoped to convert the space to offices, but the city denied them a permit. When they sought to reopen the gun store, neighborhood groups objected.

To opponents, Wednesday's ruling was undesirable but the conditions made it bearable.

"I feel like it was a victory," said Jaime Ross, treasurer of North West Bernal Alliance. "I feel like they wouldn't have included as much as they did if we didn't raise our concerns."

The store also will be required to keep display windows free of advertising, giving it an open-air look.

"It won't look like such a foreboding place anymore," Ross said. "It will open it up to the street."

Coggan said he had received hundreds of e-mails and phone calls in the days leading to the hearing. The overwhelming majority opposed the gun store, he said.

Yet at the hearing, only four people spoke against High Bridge Arms, while 10 spoke in support.

John Felix Arnold III, 30, has lived above the store for two years. He said he's lived in New York and elsewhere in San Francisco, but his current home is the safest one he's had.

"There's always a police presence," he said. "It's a place that's known not to mess around."

Others worried that High Bridge Arms' potentially explosive inventory was a risk to all neighbors.

Jose Muniz, a 35-year resident of Bernal Heights, asked the department to require the store's employees to keep ammunition in a fire-safe storage area.

"Gun shops do not belong where people live," Muniz said.

As part of the permit's conditions, Coggan said, High Bridge Arms will be required to lock all guns inside an industrial safe at the end of each shift, and no one under age 18 will be allowed inside the store without a guardian or parent.

"I appreciate all the security," Ross said, "but what we're trying to do is make the street a friendly place to be."