One customer needed gas money to get to work. Another was unloading a bike so he could follow his wife across the country. The wife of another left him without so much as a note. He needed money for his baby?s formula.
“There?s a story with everything that comes in,” said Richard Rivkin, owner of Carroll County Jewelry & Loan pawnshop, with stores in Westminster and Eldersburg.
“People come to us when they can?t go anywhere else,” he said. “If you?re broke, you can?t walk into BB&T Bank and try and borrow money because you have no credit, you?re broke.”
Crystal Blanton was his first customer Thursday.
She brought a silver chain necklace that had been lying around her room for years.
“How much do you want?” Rivkin asked.
Her job at Springfield Hospital didn?t pay for another day, and she needed gas money to get there.
“I don?t really care,” Blanton said, “I?m really broke.” She said $10 would hold her over.
Pawnshops have become community banks for many living paycheck to paycheck or for those who need help making ends meet, Rivkin says, and they have shed their image as a place for illicit trade in stolen goods.
Rivkin felt targeted when Carroll County Commissioners passed regulations last week on pawnshops, forcing owners to file into a regional police database information on all incoming merchandise to help police track items reported stolen. The legislation did not include antique shops or video gaming stores, although the county promised to include them later.
Rivkin?s stores have everything from DVDs to Harley Davidsons, he said, although he doesn?t like to take stacks of movies because it?s time-consuming to file each individually.
Video game stores like Gamestop in Hampstead have a national store policy to take down sellers? names, addresses and phone numbers, but those records are reported to police officers only when they ask.
Pawnshops file the records every day.
