DATE: Saturday, July 19, 1997               TAG: 9707190297
SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LINDA McNATT, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: ISLE OF WIGHT                     LENGTH:   67 lines

ISLE OF WIGHT REJECTS COMPANY BID TO MAKE SAFE GUNS PLANNERS HEAR COMPLAINTS FROM NEIGHBORS AND THE COUNTY SHERIFF.

A company that wants to manufacture safe guns in an old shopping center has been turned down by the county Planning Commission.

Gregory J. Hinds, a spokesman for Campbell-Davis Co., said Friday that his company has worked for seven years to develop and perfect a new safety technology that will ``change the face of the firearms industry.''

But the planning commissioners listened instead to protests from citizens living near the shopping center, in the Camptown section of the county, near Union Camp's mammoth paper-manufacturing company, and to County Sheriff Charles W. Phelps.

Phelps said he is primarily opposed to the location of the proposed facility. The Airway Shopping Center is located near a residential area and across a street from a senior citizens' housing complex, Phelps said.

In the application for a conditional use permit, Campbell-Davis wants to include employee child care.

``We have industrial areas in this county where this business could be located,'' Phelps said. ``And I don't like the idea of having a child-care center in a room next to where guns are being manufactured. I wouldn't have a problem with it if they were manufacturing radios.''

Phelps doesn't like the idea of manufacturing guns in a county that - before state laws controlling gun purchases were enacted in 1993 - had a reputation for supplying handguns to criminals.

``What we thought were legal purchases made in Isle of Wight were showing up in New York City,'' the sheriff said. ``Yes, things have changed since then. But I'm afraid allowing a gun manufacturer in here would give us a reputation of being in favor of guns.''

Lynn Harris, the county's director of economic development, doesn't agree. Harris said the county has been working for years to revitalize the shopping center, where a grocery store, one of the last few retailers there, closed early this year.

Manufacturers, such as Campbell-Davis, are willing to invest in renovating buildings with leaky roofs and floors in disrepair, Harris said, while retailers aren't.

``This is a $2 million investment, and they hope to grow,'' Harris said. ``It is another industry, another legal business.''

The company initially would employ about 30 workers, with salaries ranging from minimum wage to $12 an hour, Hinds said. He said the company hopes to provide its employees with benefits, including child care. The number of employees could go up to about 70 in a couple of years.

The facility would build .380-caliber handguns from 51 parts, 17 of them machined on site. Hinds said that shipments would be made daily and that the facility could produce up to 9,000 guns a month by the end of the first year of operation.

Campbell-Davis, he said, has 100,000 guns pre-sold overseas. The company is backed by private investors and by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Economic Development Program, which assists companies that provide jobs in rural areas.

``It is a high-quality gun, not a Saturday night special,'' Hinds said.

He said the new technology prevents the guns from being fired until they are in the hands of the owners.

The guns' potential for harm is one of Phelps' concerns.

``If somebody drives a truck through the wall of that building to get to the guns, it's going to be our problem, and if the alarm system malfunctions, I have to dispatch a unit,'' Phelps said. ``I'm not anti-gun. But if we have to have it, I don't think we should put it there.''

The County Board of Supervisors will consider the company's request at a meeting Aug. 21. KEYWORDS: GUN MANUFACTURING

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