second hand goods ordinance is getting me down

above so much heavy opposition by many businesses including gammers bestbuy and Walmart our city passed what is call the second hands good ordinance to help recover stolen goods which is a good things but this is a huge unforgiving burden for a town that has a very low crime rate I mean people rob banks sometimes on bikes here and don't even use weapons just demand money.
the new procedure is like this.
for all second hand goods purchased from a seller including bullion coins which was a point made clear in the city council meeting. each item bought needs to have the following information collected from the seller. full name, address, date of birth, purchase amount and date the serial number and picture of the item. like I said this is for every item purchased and the information needs to be upload to the database website so the police can track items being sold incase there reported stolen. this has to be done before the end of everyday and for those not using the internet it must be given to the police department by there own hours open for this depending on the day.
there are businesses like mine that buy thousands of items a month. my favorite coin shop shut its doors because its a small family business that cant afford to pay a few people just to do this because so many bullion coins and bars are bought. which at least they excluded numismatic coins from this or it would have been tens of thousands. all other things aside I buy thousands of sticks of ram and processers every month and even if I could find 2-3 people to do this and pay them near nothing I really do not think they could even do this working 60hrs a week.
so its getting me down because earlier this year after finding no properties that would work I decided I would build and have been drafting plans and was a few weeks away from the final blueprints but now all of that has gone up in smoke because even if I could manage to work out the logistics of cataloging every single item I buy and somehow still make a profit the simple fact that people for the most part do not want to go though the hassel let alone give there personal information knowing there being tracked by yet another government blah blah blah I would loose so many sellers.
now auction buys are same from this so I still and ok there but the fact that I am going to have to be a little shady buying stuff from people gets me down because i run a good business and i love my town and don't want to have to move to another just to do business.
not to mention the simple fact that its a great central location to make it simple for people to come buy or sell or drop off stuff so moving means so much extra overhead just not nearly as much but also not as much business either. so im stuck in a nightmare that once was my dream

Rent a small store front next town over

It's the war on cash. I think it was Louisiana that recently made it illegal to accept cash at yard sales.

Originally Posted by newattitude

Ok, explain this to my tired brain. Are we talking about things from person to person (like at a garage sale) or from person off the street to a business (like the scrap yards already have to do.

no garage sales and person to person is exempt like flee markets too but if I build my business here like I wanted to do the items I buy from people not whats just given because I am going to sell it myself either as scrap or retail as well I must obey this so for example i buy ram by the pound but because these are individual items i must do this for each stick i buy even if i buy by the pound because maybe a stick is stolen so say 20+ sticks to a pound i have to do this for each one and by the end of the day every day just like p4 processors which is even more bought. i went over all this with people and **** near cried in anger just incase i could find a way around with the items i buy.
see scrap yards already have this system in place but on a different set of laws but its not really tangable goods they buy but metal scrap but like a lot of consignment shops we have and antique places will close here soon because of this

travis- Sorry to hear your issues. Usually college towns are super relaxed, not all up on micro control (I guess only if they don't agree with it politically). The cops will end up hating it in short order. It sounds unconstitutional to me as well.

I suggest a couple of things. Try to get national media interested in the story. John Stossel hates mindless over reaches of government at all levels. Send your story out to anyone and everyone on the more conservative side of the national media. Local govs hate to be in the national limelight in a bad way.

I would also contact every one you think is impacted and start a class-action lawsuit against the city. It might cost everybody a few bucks but if I was going to have to go out of business something that I love to do, I would go down swinging.

And I would take up what JC4x4 said and do all the those transactions outside of the city limits. If its not state law, Ames can't do anything past their municipal limits.

Good luck buddy!!!

Sounds like re-locating is the only option at this point. The cops will LOVE the new ordinance because it will force them to hire MORE cops/clerical people, etc.. Empire building at it's finest! And once a law gets passed it's almost impossible to get repealed. It may get ignored if it's too much paperwork but it's still there for them to use selectively.

ya the first offense is a $500 fine then $2000 after that its jail time if a judge pushes it at least probation but of course your business is gone. it will be shady for the most part sneaking around buying stuff dang near like a drug dealer which I would do better at lol trying more to hush the fact im buying stuff since I get about 60% for free from drop offs. its not like there are not other towns which I will have to end of doing its the walk up business and high traffic exposure that makes this town so cushy for my type of business. this also impacts my company clients because they will have a lot further to drive which I may have to take that cost on then myself in order to keep clients happy.
I will endure and there are others in different businesses like bullion dealers and consignment shops who I feel for because unlike bestbuy Walmart or gamers and such that can just pass the expense to the customer these places will have a hard time covering the cost because they cant raise prices or they loose sales to bigger guys

This is no different then what the EPA requires scrappers here in NY and what I do for ebay sales. I couldn't see something like this working that way in Ames though. Enough business' will close before they overturn it.

In SD, by law we have to present our driver's license as id when selling scrap but that is it. And that info isn't then placed onto the carbon of receipt that I end up with. I think my non-ferrous guy has survillence tape but probably more for his own protection than, "here, stand still with your scrap while we take your picture". You all in larger pop states have to deal with a lot of crap than we don't. Maybe its needed in big pop states, maybe you all just have way too many bureaucrats and other control freaks that just like to screw with people because they can. Anyone ever watch the Nicolas Cage movie 8 MM?? "Bceause they (in that case a single guy could) can" turns a lot of people on in all kinds of twisted ways. This is not to say SD doesn't have its share of corruption, one case which I'll highlight later tonight. Saty tuned...

Originally Posted by olddude

Do you really think the Government actually cares what you think, or how many businesses they put out of business.

City wide maybe, but not state or country

well after the weekend, now I say media attention but its local a few papers and news reports, forced the police to respond and basically said were standing by our decision and people are just going to have to get use to it, other towns have done this and yes we don't want places to close but this will all blow over and they will get used to the new system.
going through it yesterday with a few other people did come to find out that they changed the exception to allow consignment goods overall just not things like bullion and higher value art and things. so maybe that will help keep some places open.
I myself have been busy finding were city limits end and county begins and were businesses are and even though there is nothing right now for sale there are a couple of spots I might be able to squeeze into but more so going to talk to a few and see if any are planning on leaving. the first place I am hitting up later today when the owner is there is a storage place I didn't use because its much higher than others but was thinking of talking to them about maybe buying a few units to combine and use for business but of course zoning issues and things I have to look up for renting and or buying to do business there