Antiques Dealers Caught in Proposed Pawnshop Law by Robert Kyle A can of secondhand worms has been opened in Montgomery County, Maryland, by a proposed bill that lumps antiques dealers, auctioneers, and used-book shops in the same category as pawnshops. Bill 42-97 under consideration by the county council not only poses zoning restrictions against new pawnshops, it would require dealers of all secondhand personal property to comply with a set of stringent guidelines. The exception is merchandise bought from a public sale such as an auction or estate sale.
Items imported from outside the U.S. also are exempt.
Ironically, the new bill is not completely new but an amendment to an existing law, Chapter 44A, which requires a written record of each purchase and a holding period of 18 days. Because it is geared to pawnshops, antiques dealers have been largely ignoring it, or they applied for an exemption under a category that less than 10of their inventory is purchased from individuals walking in off the street. To comply with the new amendments to the existing law, dealers would need a computer, a copy machine, and be on line in order to record this data and transmit it by 10 a.m. the following day to police. Then the county's four-person pawnshop Unit would check each entry against a stolen goods list. Buying the proposed new license would not only allow the dealer to sell antiques, it also gives blanket authorization to the police to enter his premises during normal business hours to inspect books, records, and inventory.