Pawn Shops to Receive Payday Loan Treatment in Racine,WI?
By J.J. CameronPayday Loan Writer
It started with different kinds of cheap payday loans. The city of racine placed restrictions on such cash advances. Now, pawn shops may receive the same treatment.
The Journal Times, however, is reporting that a local man who intends to open a pawn shop is hoping to fight back. Monday, the License and Welfare Committee deferred action for two weeks on Terry Jackson’s application for a second-hand dealer’s license.
Jackson has a lease on the storefront at 949 Washington Ave., where he hopes to open what would be Racine’s only pure pawn shop. The committee, however, went ahead and also unanimously recommended a 90-day moratorium on pawn shops, looking to analyze them with the same scrutiny previously reserved for cash loans.
The action came at 11th District Alderman Greg Helding’s urging.
“I don’t know Terry Jackson,” he said Tuesday. “It’s nothing against him personally.”
Helding said quick payday advance shops proliferated before the city council got around to reining in their growth. With pawn shops, “I want to fix it before it becomes a problem.”
Committee Chairman David Maack agreed with Helding.
“I just don’t think (pawn shops) send the right impressions of a neighborhood or a community, because of their reputation,” he said.“Therefore, I think we have to be careful about where we put them - or if we put them.”
Jackson was irritated by the committee’s actions, which he said would hurt him financially. To apply for a dealer’s license, he had to have a specific building lined up.
A 90-day moratorium, he said, “will cost me four months’ rent on a two-year lease on something they might not be able to do. It’s not fair, and I’m not sure about the legality of it."
That, of course, will be looked at, just as it was when rules were placed on regular and faxless payday loans. One knock against pawn shops is that they can become convenient places to sell stolen goods. Jackson said he’d work with Racine police to make their jobs easier, with computer software that would share his inventory information with them.
He said the pawn shop would also require a picture ID and thumb print for every pawned item.With that sort of record-keeping, Jackson said a smart thief would not fence stolen items at a pawn shop - but instead, at a secondhand shop that would give you cash for it.
“(City officials) need to worry about these secondhand shops that are saying they’re jewelry stores, and they’re full of car stereos,” he stated.
Jackson also said he’s already hearing from people who are happy that a pawn shop may be opening here. After all, they don't have no fax payday loan operations to turn to anymore.
“It’s like a bank,” he said. “It’s just smaller loans, it’s smaller collateral. It’s like a bank for people with bad credit.“Things just happen in life,” he continued. “We’re not going to be feeding off the poor people and the people who are down on their luck.“We’re going to provide a service, and every time you provide a service, there’s a fee.”
