This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Politics & Government

Rye Brook Looking to Clean Out Its Gun Locker

Rye Brook officials are poised to establish a $25 monthly fee on the storage of unlicensed handguns at the police department. The goal is to motivate gun owners to get permits for their weapons.

In a bid to motivate gun owners who store unlicensed guns with the police department, the Village of Rye Brook may adopt a monthly storage fee this year.

According to Rye Brook Police Chief Greg Austin, the department currently houses more than 30 handguns that belong to village residents but are not properly licensed. Many are heirlooms that the owners never bothered to register, while others have expired permits that have yet to be renewed. Some of the guns have been in storage for two decades.

"We're looking to motivate people who safeguard their guns with the police to lawfully possess them and not keep them at the police department for an indefinite period of time," Austin said.

Find out what's happening in Ryewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The chief asked the village to include the $25-a-month fee in its budget for fiscal year 2012, which begins June 1. An initial proposal would have allowed six free months of storage, but village officials increased that timeframe to a year.

"We wanted to give people a little more time to fill out the paperwork" to register their guns, Mayor Joan Feinstein said, adding that the fee "is not a revenue-raiser."

Find out what's happening in Ryewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

"We're trying to find a mechanism, not to raise money, but because we don't want to be a storage facility," she said.

At a work session last month, Trustee Paul Rosenberg voiced concern that the fee could deter people from properly storing unlicensed guns, leaving at least a handful of residents with illegal guns in their homes. But Rosenberg said that after talking to Austin, he saw the merit of the fee.

"I was initially a bit concerned, because putting a fee on anything could potentially cause someone to think twice," he said, "but after speaking to the chief I think it will encourage the lawful possession of guns."

Austin said that his department also has a few guns that were seized during investigations, some decades old. But those guns are part of a separate storage system. He's hoping to work out an arrangement with the State Police to destroy those guns.

"Some of them are old, from before this was the village of Rye Brook and was still the town of Rye," he said.

The Village Board is expected to vote on the 2012 budget in May. A public hearing on the budget will be held on Tuesday, April 12.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?