Trading in a stack of Will Ferrell DVDs or pawning off the gold bracelet you got from ol’ what’s-his-name could cost you $3 if a pawn tax proposed by the Tucson Police Department is approved by the Tucson City Council at tomorrow’s meeting.
Under current pawn law, such sales require that a slip is filled out at the time of the transaction, and the store must hold items for 20 days in an effort to catch stolen goods.
But, if the new pawn tax passes, TPD will charge $3 for each slip filled out, a measure which Bookmans Entertainment Exchange owner Bob Oldfather calls “incredibly, incredibly detrimental to businesses.”
“All it’s going to do is swamp the police department with more paperwork,” Oldfather says. “They already can’t keep track of all the pawn slips they already get, but because there’s this demand for revenue, they’re going to increase it.”
If the pawn tax is approved by the City Council, most businesses will deduct the $3 tax from the total amount the seller receives, but because of the other options available to Bookmans’ sellers—Craigslist, Amazon, Ebay and yard sales— Oldfather said he will have to find
a way to pay for the slips.
“We give a lot to charities,” he says. “That’s the first place we’d pull it if we had to come up with this kind of money.”
The tax would cost “in excess of $100,000 a year” for Bookmans alone, he said.
Instead of singling out pawn shops and secondhand dealers, Oldfather proposed at last week’s City Council meeting that they raise the $50-a-year business tax by $20 or $50, a measure he considers both more fair and more lucrative.
Buffalo Exchange owner Kerstin Block said the tax would not apply to clothing but may affect customers selling designer handbags worth more than $100.
Either way, she said she would favor a raise in the business tax, as Oldfather proposed, over the $3 pawn tax that is being considered.
“From our perspective, that would be a better way of going about it than to collect an individual tax on every single item,” she said.
Block added via email, “Buffalo Exchange does business in 12 states and has 38 stores and nowhere have we encountered a tax like the one proposed by Tucson Police Department.”
TPD spokesman Sgt. Fabian Pacheco didn’t want to defend the new fee. He tells The Range: “We’re not commenting on that here in the department until it’s presented to the Mayor and Council, and that won’t be until May 11.”
This article appears in May 6-12, 2010.
Does TPD have any stats for stolen goods being sold through Bookman’s? Why would it apply to DVDs and designer purses but not clothing? What about antique stores? Are they selling stolen items? Until TPD comes up with sold evidence that a lot of stolen goods are sold through second-hand stores, as opposed to pawn shops, then it’s a ridiculous law.
What about the swap meet or yard sales????
One evening, a man came into a business I was in and was wanting to sell jewelry items that obviously had been stolen. I called TPD and because it was at night, the woman who picked up said they weren’t interested. Why don’t they go after these people?
I agree that this will harm Bookman’s because people don’t get a lot from Bookman’s to begin with unless they exchange. People simply won’t sell or trade their goods there. I believe you get $4 to sell your CDs there, and Bookman’s turns around and doubles the price when it sells them. I would rather see a loophole for trading stores.
Hey Tucson City Council — get a clue! The proposed pawn fee won’t adversely affect the Bookmans at Ina and Thornydale…
Does Red Star detect the tiny hands of Assistant City Moron (former TPD Chief) Richard Miranda in this?
This is a copy of a letter I sent to the City Council:
My fellow Tucsonians,
I am writing you once more about the upcoming vote for the pawn/secondhand tax. I know that today in study session the Chief of Police will give you his recommendation that you enact this ordinance. As clearly as possible I want to say this is bad law biased on flawed logic. The justification for this new tax, on a certain segment of our community, is that we cause more work for our public servants and therefore should pay some of those costs. If this rational were carried to its logical conclusion then any of us that cause “extra work” would have to pay for that burden. Should neighborhoods that have more crime and require more visits from our police pay higher taxes? How about areas of town with old houses paying more because the fire department has more calls to that area? This not the way things are done in our society. Or perhaps those who already pay more taxes do deserve a faster response time? This is not the way it is supposed to work We all expect and deserve an equal amount of service regardless of our contribution to the governments coffers. I am asking you to really consider the message you are sending with this law if it passes. Tying any governmental service to how much you pay is bad law and bad precedence.
Please consider a minor flat increase in the business license tax across the board to help our police department provide the services that all business need regardless of our particular chosen professions.
Thank you,
Bob Oldfather
Bookmans
I guess that they could save money by yanking the guy that’s stuck sitting in back of the white photo enforcement van. Isn’t that what we have the robots for anyway? This way the cops that normally are only working on issuing fines to speeding cars can be freed up to prevent actual felonies and property crimes.
Every single antique shop and thrift or vintage store in Tucson has been burglarized in the last year or so. And almost all of them have had it happen not once but twice. [This is totally true.]
Now the police want more money from these businesses so that they can do a better job locating stolen property from places that don’t really have as much property in the first place because the police couldn’t do a better job of catching the crooks that robbed them.
Does this make sense? It doesn’t to me.
I’m sure that most people would like it if their stolen property was located and returned and the bad guys held accountable. But, honestly, don’t you think everyone would like it even more if they didn’t have someone rob them in the first place?