Oakdale Council Members Divided on Allowing More Pawnshops

Oakdale City Council members said they want to see some kind of restriction on the number of pawnshops allowed in town, but differed on how strict they should be.

Council members said they favored limiting the number of pawnshops in Oakdale to one or two, and possibly restricting where they can be located, at a workshop meeting Tuesday, Aug. 23.

With one pawnshop in Oakdale already, and others available in nearby communities, Oakdale residents don’t need another pawnshop, council members Stan Karwoski and Paul Reinke said.

“We certainly aren’t restricting anybody from getting their needs fulfilled at a pawnshop,” Reinke said. “There’re seven in St. Paul and within minutes they can get to a pawnshop and take care of business.”

Minnesota law enforcement agencies have created a database to track items sold to pawnshops as a way to find stolen items, and Reinke said this suggests that pawnshops can attract a criminal element.

“It’s just not a neighborhood five and dime,” he said.

Council members Kent Dotas and Lori Pulkrabek said they favored limiting the number of pawnshops to two. Mayor Carmen Sarrack wasn’t present for the meeting.

Dotas said there’s a trend of more consignment and second-hand stores popping up, and that he was leery of singling out one type of business for restriction. Also, with the slow economy, he said he hates to turn away someone who wants to invest in the community.

The owner of local chain maX it PAWN to clean up the vacant gas station site at the northeast corner of Highway 36 and Highway 120 and repurpose the building as a pawnshop. In February, the council on new pawnshops to make time to study whether the city should place more restrictions on them.

At the meeting Tuesday, council members asked Community Development Director Bob Streetar to report back on where pawnshops could be located if they were restricted to specific zoning districts and prevented from locating 150 feet from a residential parcel, church, school or daycare facility.

Streetar’s department researched the pawnshop issue by collecting data on what 10 other area cities are doing and also surveying members of the Economic Development Commission and Oakdale Business and Professional Association.

Twelve of the 19 survey respondents said they didn’t have any concerns in regard to pawnshops, according to a memo to the council. Seven had concerns about police resources and, “ensuring a ‘well kept’ appearance with professional signage,” the memo says.

The council decided to discuss the issue again at its Sept. 27 workshop meeting.