MACON, Ga. — An expired county ordinance was front and center Tuesday tonight for Bibb County Commissioners.
Beginning in February and for 180 days, no new pawn shops could open in Macon, after what Mayor Miller called an oversaturation across the county.
“Our concern is that businesses were targeting certain parts of our community that have the highest poverty,” he said to WGXA in a previous interview.
That temporary pause on licenses expired August 21st, now commissioners are faced with whether or not to extend it for another nine months.
Miller says the extension would allow them to collect more data, but Pawnbrokers like Tony Wood don’t want to see that happen.
“Pawn shops are not the villain that we’re always portrayed to be,” he said.
According to Wood, his store and others like it serve real people who have real needs.
“If people could come and just spend a little bit of time in one of our stores and just observe the counter, they’d realize that we don’t deal with the people that we’re portrayed to deal with,” he said.
The pawnbroker explained how his customers are those who need help making ends meet until their next paycheck, in which case going to the bank isn’t an option.
“If you eliminate pawn shops, where would people go that need to borrow $50 or $100 when their family doesn’t have it.”
While his business isn’t directly affected, the owner says he’s fielded a lot of questions since the extension was proposed, like “why do they want to shut y’all down?”
Wood spoke against the extension at the Tuesday meeting, and he wasn’t alone.
Others said, “I’ve never seen our industry under scrutiny like this,” and “I am a pawnbroker but I am not an evil person.”
Each man challenged the idea that his business contributes to crime, blight, or lower property value– believing instead that taking their service away from the community would create the same problems the commission is aiming to avoid.
“We fear that those people if times get desperate enough, would resort to crime,” Wood explained.
Others questioned what would happen to their store if they died because the new owner would need a license but under the ordinance would not be able to get one.
Miller said because already existing businesses would be grandfathered in, they would include such a language into the ordinance, preventing this oversight.
Despite the mayor’s efforts, the united front from the pawnbrokers paid off… for now.
One by one, commissioners like Al Tillman, Valerie Wynn, Mallory Jones, and Elaine Lucas began to express their own concerns with the extension.
Ultimately, it was decided to table the final vote for the next meeting.
