The applicant has applied for a license to carry a concealed firearm. The applicant resides in East Elmhurst, New York, and is employed as a peace officer in the Brooklyn, New York, office of the criminal investigations division of the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance (DTF). A hearing on the application was held on April 1, 2025, in the Albany County Courthouse. While the applicant checked the entry on the application for a "carry concealed" license, she focused at the hearing on her work-related need for a license to carry out her DTF responsibilities.

Penal Law § 400.00 governs the firearms licensure process. Under Penal Law § 400.00 (3) (a), "[a]pplications shall be made and renewed . . . in the city or county, as the case may be, where the applicant resides, is principally employed or has his or her principal place of business as merchant or storekeeper." The applicant resides in Queens County, not Albany County. She does not have a principal place of business as a merchant or storekeeper in Albany County. The applicant seeks a firearms license in Albany County because, in her view, she is "principally employed" in Albany County because her employer, DTF, maintains its principal place of business in Albany County.

At least two firearms-licensing judges in Albany County have rendered opinions rejecting this view (see Matter of Benedetti, 84 Misc 3d 543 [Sup Ct, Albany County 2024, Marcelle, J.]; Matter of L.L., 84 Misc 3d 472 [Sup Ct, Albany County 2024, Platkin, J.]). Both judges distinguished between the employer's business location—that is, the location where DTF officers direct, control, and coordinate the agency's activities—and the location where the applicant herself was "principally employed" (Matter of Benedetti, 84 Misc 3d at 547; Matter of L.L., 84 Misc 3d at 473 n 2). Both reasoned that the phrase "principally employed," as used in Penal Law § 400.00 (3) (a), refers to the "the place where the employee [regularly] carries out his [or her] employment tasks" (Matter of Benedetti, 84 Misc 3d at 547; see Matter of L.L., 84 Misc 3d at 473 n 2). And while the judges were not in full agreement about whether the locational nexus is a strict, jurisdictional prerequisite for issuance of a firearms license, both concluded that it was inappropriate to issue a license in Albany County to a DTF employee who neither resided nor was principally employed in Albany County.

Osterweil v Bartlett (21 NY3d 580 [2013]) provides some guidance here. The Court of Appeals held that an applicant who had a part-time residence in New York may obtain a firearms license in the county of part-time residence even if his actual domicile was out-of-state. In assessing the meaning of the word "resides," the Court described the language of Penal Law § 400 (3) (a) as "delineating the procedure whereby an individual files an application for a license," as opposed to "an eligibility requirement" (Osterweil, 21 NY3d at 585). The Court also considered the legislative objective of requiring applicants to apply for licensure in a county where they live or work as "to discourage forum-shopping" (id. at 586 [internal quotation marks omitted]). Given the Court's analysis in Osterweil, Penal Law § 400.00 (a) (3)'s language does not appear to impose a strict, jurisdictional prerequisite for licensure in a particular county, but given the statutory objective, the applicant must demonstrate a strong nexus of residence or employment activities in the county of licensure.

The issue thus distills to whether the fact that the applicant is employed as a peace officer in the criminal investigations division of the DTF, which has its central administrative office in Albany, New York, is sufficient to warrant firearms licensure in Albany County. The Court concludes that it is not. For purposes of exercising her powers and duties as an employee designated by DTF as a peace officer (see Criminal Procedure Law §§ 2.10 [4], 2.20), the statute prescribes that her "geographic area of employment" "consists of the entire state" (id. at § 140.25 [5] [a]). But at the hearing, the applicant testified that she works almost exclusively from the DTF's Brooklyn office. For a couple weeks per year, she attends DTF training in Albany. While she noted that she could be reassigned to a different field office at some point, she did not suggest that any such reassignment was likely or imminent. Nor did she portend enforcement responsibilities that would frequently take her to regions of the State beyond the aegis of her field office. On these facts, petitioner is not "principally employed" in Albany County. As petitioner is neither a resident of nor principally employed in Albany County, her application is not appropriately brought here (see Penal Law § 400.00 [3] [a]).

Even if the applicant's connection to the central DTF office in Albany could be considered a sufficient nexus to Albany County to alleviate undue forum shopping, the Court finds persuasive the implementation difficulties of licensure here identified by my colleagues. Under Penal Law § 400.00 (3) (a), local law enforcement authorities play an essential role in the firearms licensure and regulation process. "[T]he duly constituted police authorities of the locality where such application is made" must conduct "an investigation of all statements [*2]required in the application" (Penal Law § 400.00 [4]). Local police authorities also carry out important responsibilities in the suspension and revocation processes, including "(i) notifying the court of significant contacts with licensees, (ii) serving suspension and revocation orders, (iii) seizing firearms licenses and firearms held pursuant thereto, and (iv) appearing in court to testify in suspension and revocation hearings" (Matter of L.L., 84 Misc 3d at 474; see Penal Law § 400.00 [11]). "All of these activities are more effectively and efficiently conducted where the licensing officer, licensee/applicant and local police authorities are within reasonable geographic proximity of one another" (id., citing Matter of Davies, 133 Misc 2d 38, 41 [Oswego County Ct 1986]).

The logistical implementation concerns identified by my colleagues are compounded by the procedures set forth in Criminal Procedure Law § 2.10 (4), which expressly addresses firearms permits for DTF-designated peace officers. Subdivision (4) of that section requires DTF-designated peace officers to obtain firearms permits, after enhanced training, through the Penal Law § 400.00 procedures:

[N]othing in this subdivision shall be deemed to authorize any such employee designated as a peace officer . . . to carry, possess, repair or dispose of a firearm unless the appropriate license therefor has been issued pursuant to section 400.00 of the penal law, and further provided that, prior to such designation by the commissioner each such employee shall have successfully completed the training requirements specified in section 2.30 of this article.

And subdivision (4) provides for separate work-related permits for firearms issued by DTF and general concealed carry permits for personal use:

[A]ny license issued to such employee pursuant to such peace officer designation by the commissioner shall relate only to the firearm issued to such employee by the department of taxation and finance and such permit shall not cover any other firearms. The foregoing sentence shall not be deemed to prohibit such peace officer from applying for a separate permit relating to non-departmental firearms.

The present licensing scheme thus contemplates scenarios in which a peace officer would be eligible for licensure for a work-related concealed carry license in one county and a personal concealed carry license in another. Such a scenario would present implementation and enforcement difficulties in that it could require two different local law enforcement agencies to be involved in parallel Penal Law § 400.00 proceedings, including by conducting separate background investigations, supervising the permits, serving any suspension and termination orders, and testifying at hearings. And two different licensing officers would be responsible for issuing permits and addressing any suspension and termination issues.^[FN1] Although dual-county licensure may sometimes be required under the statute, the ensuing difficulties are of no moment [*3]in the present application, because the Court finds that petitioner does not meet the requirements for licensure in Albany County for either an employment-related license or a personal concealed carry license.

DTF's ability to centralize its administration of timely and efficient licensure to carry DTF-issued firearms for its designated peace officers would likely require legislative amendment. Under the current Penal Law § 400.00 regime, however, it would be imprudent to entertain non-resident applications for licensure in Albany County where the applicant does not carry out substantial employment-related activities here.

For these reasons, the instant application is denied. Should the applicant reapply for a firearms license in an appropriate county, having reviewed the application and background check materials, the denial of this application is based solely on the improper forum analysis discussed above.