In re Appeal by Barrett (N.J. App. Div. Feb. 16, 2011):

By letter dated April 7, 2009, the Hillside Township Chief of Police (Chief) denied Starr Barrett’s application for a firearms purchaser identification card (FPIC) and handgun purchase permit (permit). After a hearing on November 20, 2009, the trial court reversed the Chief’s decision and granted Barrett’s application. Hillside Township (Hillside) appeals the trial court’s decision, claiming that the issuance of the FPIC and permit to Barrett is not “in the interest of the public health, safety or welfare” because of her association with the father of her seven-year-old child and the father’s cousin…. [W]e affirm. …

Barrett applied for a FPIC and a permit on November 17, 2008. The police investigated her and found that two moving violations were issued to individuals while they were driving her vehicle; one to her child’s father, Wayne Moore, on August 13, 2007, and the other to Moore’s cousin, on February 10, 2008. Both men have a criminal record. Moore is currently incarcerated in the Garden State Youth Correctional Facility in Yardville, New Jersey and is eligible for parole in 2011. Moore’s home address has been listed as Barrett’s address for four years on the law enforcement database, Accurant, which Mayer admitted is at times incorrect. According to the Division of Motor Vehicles’ records, Moore’s current address is also Barrett’s address, only a few blocks from the Hillside police station.

Mayer testified that Barrett has never been arrested and has no “personal disqualifiers.” He said that he based his denial of Barrett’s application on her association with Moore and, to a lesser extent, Moore’s cousin, pursuant to N.J.S.A. 2C:58-3c(5) and In re Application of Clark, 257 N.J. Super. 152, 154 (Law Div. 1992), where the court held that a wife could be denied a FPIC if her husband has a criminal conviction disqualifying him from owning a handgun. Mayer testified that he did not believe Barrett’s assurance that Moore would not live with her upon his release from prison, given the Accurant information and the fact that Barrett has been visiting Moore in prison regularly.

Barrett testified she brings the couple’s daughter to visit her father in prison one to two times per month. She said she does not intend to live with Moore upon his release, and will not accept his mail or handle his financial matters from now on if the court so directs. She said she never lived with Moore, but merely let him visit. She produced bills sent to him at a different address and testified she helps him with his “administrative duties” while he is incarcerated because his parents live much further away, in Rocky Hill, North Carolina.