Some lawmakers say that whether you?re selling used video games or old CDs, the stores that buy them are similar to pawnshops, and should be regulated as such.
Take Fast Money Traders on Harford Road in Baltimore. It has the dusty, worn-out smell of a pawn shop. The shelves are filled with second-hand stereo equipment, power tools, dated VHS tapes ? typical pawnshop fare.
So is it a pawnshop?
“Everything is the same, but we don?t have contracts,” said store manager David Polidare. All sales are final, no loans, like a pawnshop. If you sell something, “you have to show your ID,” Polidare said.
But Baltimore City Council Member Robert Curran, D-District 3, is concerned because several of these “trade shops” that buy used goods for cash have been opening on the Harford Road business corridor in his district. The problem is, they?re not legally classified as pawnshops and therefore are not regulated as such, Curran said.
“These things are springing up like mushrooms,” he said. “They?re technically skirting the zoning laws.”
Zoning restrictions that require potential pawnshop owners to get Baltimore City Council approval to locate in commercial districts do not apply to establishments like Fast Money Traders.
Curran says he is worried that goods bought, sold and traded in the stores won?t be reported to the police department. “When you go to a pawn shop, they take a description and you sign a form, and they send it to the police department,” Curran said.
But Polidare said Curran is misinformed. “We report everything we purchase to the police and the pawn bureau,” Polidare said.
Still, on March 16, Baltimore City police executed a search warrant at the store and confiscated $35,000 worth of DVD players, power tools, electronic devices which the report listed as “possibly stolen.” No charges have been filed.
Polidare said the police made a mistake. “All the paperwork for the stuff the police took was at our other store in Dundalk.”
Polidare said he has not heard from the police or provided the missing paperwork.
Curran has a bill in committee to expand zoning restrictions to include stores like Fast Money Traders that buy used goods. Curran believes the bill is the only way to ensure his community is adequately protected.
“The quasi-pawnshops would have to get City Council approval before opening, plus the community will get a chance to voice its opinion,” Curran said. “I don?t want to be walking down Harford Road one day and say ?Hey, there?s my chain saw!? ”
