Among the concerns raised by members of the La Grange Business Association (LGBA) this morning regarding plans for a pawn shop in the downtown building that formerly housed Hollywood Video was an Illinois requirement that local police departments in Cook County receive and review reports provided daily by any pawn shop in their jurisdiction.
Police Chief Michael Holub attended the LGBA meeting but declined to comment on how such a requirement might affect the workload of his department, saying he had not yet read the statute.
The Pawnbroker Regulation Act (205 ILCS 510) states:
At the time of each and every loan or taking of a pledge,
an accurate account and description, in the English language, of all the
goods, articles and other things pawned or pledged, the amount of money,
value or thing loaned thereon, the time of pledging the same, the rate of
interest to be paid on such loan, and the name and residence of the person
making such pawn or pledge shall be printed, typed, or written in ink in
the record book. Such entry shall include the serial number or
identification number of items received which bear such
number.
The law further requires that "Pawnbrokers located in cities or towns in [Cook County] must deliver such reports to the superintendent of police or the chief police officer of such city or town."
Such records often are examined by police to determine if they contain items that have been reported to police as stolen.
Click here to read the complete text of the statute.
Editor's Note: A hat tip to reader Joe Bagodonuts who also mentioned this law and provided a similar in comments he made to an earlier post.
I guess the police don't want to solve property crimes with the help of the pawn shop. There's no revenue in that!
Posted by: Level Player | June 12, 2009 at 09:22 AM
There's a lot of doubletalk, whispering, and euphemism being used in this discussion.
Near as I can tell, the real argument being made is this:
This shop will attract people who need money badly, and those types are not welcome here. They won't spend much on La Grange Rd, and by their very presence they will drive down neighboring properties' values. Nothing against poor people personally you understand. But they need to be someplace else.
This argument, in my opinion, is profoundly selfish and based in ignorance. Any "affluent community" member who makes it should be ashamed of themselves.
Posted by: Chris Walsh | June 13, 2009 at 01:41 PM
Chris,
No euphemism needed. It is a fact (see link below) that pawn shops have been used by property criminals to dispose of stolen property. Said property criminals are often engaged in other sorts of criminal activity such as narcotics and presumably, the potential for violence that accompanies street level drug transactions.
The link below is from this past March and outlines a sting run by police on the North Shore involving pawn shops.
In my opinion, this is NOT the type of business I want in La Grange.
http://www.cookcountysheriff.org/press_page/press_fakeEvanstonPawn_03_25_09.html
Posted by: Joe Bagodonuts | June 14, 2009 at 09:46 PM