Breach of the piece
NYPD nixed my gun permit after 47 years: suit
The NYPD took away his heat — and a Manhattan attorney is burning mad.
Max Leifer is suing the NYPD because the department’s License Division shot down his gun-permit renewal application — after nearly 50 years of him safely carrying a firearm.
“It is amazing that while New York City is plagued by unlicensed gun holders, the NYPD is now depriving a law-abiding New York City resident who has maintained a license for 47 years without any problems,” Leifer says in his Manhattan Supreme Court filing.
Leifer has been an attorney since 1972 and never had an issue getting his gun permit renewed every two years.
He said he needs the harder-toget “carry” permit because he does business deals and takes client retainers that sometimes involve a “substantial amount of cash.” He’s also a partner in two bars, Brandy Library in Tribeca and Copper & Oak on the Lower East Side, which “also generate cash.”
In July 2020, for the first time since he started using handguns for protection in 1973, his renewal application was denied.
A judge will now have to decide whether Leifer’s two guns — a James Bond-like Walther automatic and a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver — will remain locked away at the 10th Precinct station house on West 20th Street for safekeeping.
The NYPD claims Leifer, 75, did not fully cooperate with its investigator as he failed to produce “three months of bank statements and the corresponding deposit slips and documentation of being in extraordinary personal danger.”
He admittedly snarked that the NYPD was acting like the IRS.
The NYPD concluded, “The activities which justified granting a Business Carry License in the past do not exist anymore.
“You no longer carry or transport cash. You no longer transact business involving expensive watches and artifacts. You no longer collect rent from rental properties. This amounts to a change in circumstance.”
Leifer called the scandal-scarred License Division “a joke.”
“They intentionally do not want to give licenses. Contrary to the Second Amendment where a citizen should be able to have a gun in his home or business,” he said.
“Meanwhile, all these maniacs are running around with unlicensed guns and shooting everybody in the street.”
The Post exclusively revealed in December that while 8,088 applications for first-time rifle and gun permits had been filed since March 22 — when COVID-19 restrictions went into effect — only 1,087 were granted, a rate of about 14 percent.
During the same period in 2019, the NYPD approved 1,778 of 2,562 applications, a rate of nearly 70 percent.
The department could not give any stats on renewals when asked last week.
The License Division was rocked by corruption in 2017, with officers accused of fast–tracking applications for gun licenses in exchange for bribes that included booze and hookers.
“There has undoubtedly been a change in policy over the issuance of carry handgun licenses, since the shake-up from the public corruption scandal,” said Manhattan attorney Fred Abrams, who has been handling gun-permit issues for 30 years.
“People from all walks of life who the License Division deemed eligible for carry handgun licenses suddenly are ineligible.”
Leifer’s suit, filed Feb. 3, seeks the renewal of his pistol license and unspecified court costs.