American Fork pawn shops get new rules

AMERICAN FORK — Buying and selling items at a pawn shop in American Fork will now require a little more attention to detail from shop employees.

The City Council discussed and passed the first phase of changes to its ordinances for pawn shops and pawn brokers within city limits. The new law requires pawn shops to record the name, address and physical description of the person buying or selling an item at the shop.

"The council wanted to bring more specifics to the ordinance," Mayor Heber Thompson said. "There were some fairly loose definitions and loopholes that we have had some bad experiences with, so we hope that we can administer the ordinance more precisely if everything is clarified a little more."

The ordinance will also require an accurate description of the item pawned, and a failure to comply with the ordinance would be a misdemeanor offense.

"One of the major reasons was that we felt when police have investigations that involve pawn shops, we found that if the shops did not have precise record-keeping, it impeded the efficiency of the investigation," Thompson said. "So we wanted a little more detail in there."

The city currently has three pawn shops, which are required to be at least 1 mile apart. Phase two of the ordinance would only allow one pawn shop for every 12,000 residents in the city. The city's current estimate for population is just under 30,000.

— Ethan Thomas