I let my C&R lapse for maybe a year when I moved from TX to the PRK. I called ATF in San Francisco; person on the phone told me she'd let me renew with a change of address. She assigned me a new license number on the phone, and I got the license back about 3 weeks after I mailed the application and $$ to Dallas.
State/local cops have zero influence over you getting a C&R (class 03) license. You do have to get a copy to your CLEO, either police chief or sheriff. I dropped mine off at a sheriff's substation, don't know what happened to it after that.
PRK has made it difficult to get a regular (class 01) ffl, and difficult to use, but not to get, a C&R. I think you might have your licenses mixed up.
A C&R outside the PRK allows you to buy and have shipped to you any gun 50 years or older and any gun listed on the C&R list published by the ATF.
Inside Kalifornistan, only long guns 50 years or older are OK; any handguns regardless of age and anything on the ATF list less than 50 years old has to go through a PRK FFL, with the associated 10 day wait, lock/safe requirement, etc. You can get around the 10 day wait by getting a Certificate of Eligability from the DOJ, but that's $70 and two sets of prints and generally a pain in the a$$.
The rules are too crazy to post here, so get over to the PRK DOJ page and check out the firearms rules.
-hanko (happy to be in Idaho)