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The Dayton Daily News is committed to coverage of local governments, including West Carrollton’s vote to restrict pawn shops.
Changes restricting the locations and operating hours of pawn shops and cash loan businesses will begin next month in West Carrollton.
The city has adopted changes to limit where and when “alternative financial services providers” — as city officials said pawn shops are classified — can operate.
Starting May 12, new businesses such as pawn shops, convenience store-type check-cashing and cash-loaning establishments will be permitted to operate only in small pockets of the city and — in some cases — with restricted hours.
“We want to kind of limit these types of businesses in the community,” West Carrollton City Manager Brad Townsend said.
“They (can) be predatory in nature for particularly low-income folks,” he added. “So we wanted to restrict the number and places where they can operate.”
The city’s council approved the changes in April after placing a moratorium on pawn shops and similar other businesses in July 2014.
The nearly two-year freeze came after it was discovered West Carrollton’s zoning codes “were silent” in specifically addressing those businesses, said city Planning Director Greg Gaines.
The changes help “to limit their proliferation and concentration,” he said.
West Carrollton officials said there are general concerns that if those businesses are not better controlled, property values would drop.
The city had one pawn shop and two cash-lending business when the moratorium was instituted, officials said. The pawn shop has since closed and the two lending establishments – one Springboro Pike and another on South Alex Road – will be grandfathered (or exempt) from the changes, Gaines said.
When the changes take effect, such businesses would be allowed only as a conditional use in a general commercial district, records show.
Documents also state they cannot operate within 1,500 feet of any other alternative financial service provider. Restrictions further include those locations not be within 1,000 feet of any sexually-oriented businesses, gun shops, hookah bars, tattoo or body piercing shops or any store which sells alcoholic beverages for off-premise consumption.
Under these guidelines, in the downtown area establishments would be allowed only on East Dixie and East Central Avenue between Cedar Street and Handle Street – and at 561 W. Central Ave., Gaines said.
They would also be permitted on Springboro Pike between Dixie Drive and near Marcy Drive, directly across from Genoa Avenue in Moraine, he said.
If these businesses are within 150 feet of a lot containing a “conforming single-family residence” they will be able to operate only between 7 a.m. and 9 p.m., documents state.
Townsend said the city’s changes should properly address the issue.
“We believe this will be sufficient moving forward,” he said.
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