Photo by Anokarina

Earlier this month, the Department of Regulatory and Consumer Affairs introduced a revised set of rules applying to secondhand shops dealing in wares like vintage clothing and used music. The proposed rule-making came in the wake of an enforcement exercise earlier this year by DCRA and the Metropolitan Police Department in which shops on 18th Street NW in Adams Morgan were dinged for operating in violation of the same rules governing pawn shops.

But the response to April’s raids came in the form of a push to overhaul secondhand-dealer regulations to treat vintage stores differently from pawn shops, which are required to obtain more expensive business licenses and to report their daily inventories to MPD’s stolen property unit. Violations of such rules could have cost the stores—which included Adams Morgan staples like Crooked Beat Records and Meeps vintage clothing shop—upward of $2,000 a day.

The new rules introduced June 1 would allow shops dealing used books, vinyl records, CDs, DVDs and videotapes, clothing, rugs and certain works of art to operate with DCRA’s standard business license. But an Adams Morgan business alliance said then the proposed changes did not go far enough.

Kristen Barden, executive director of the Adams Morgan Partnership Business Improvement District, told DCist earlier this month that DCRA’s proposal fell short in covering secondhand furniture dealers like GoodWood. Both she and a DCRA spokesman said the proposal would be revised to encompass more of the shops that comprise a vital element of commerce along 18th Street.

Under the revised rule-making, secondhand stores that deal in furniture, other home furnishings, lithographs and jewelry not containing precious metals or stones would be excepted from the same regulations applying to pawn shops.

The proposed rules, posted below, are in a public-comment period through June 30. In the mean time, DCRA has placed a moratorium on enforcement of current rules against affected shops until the new regulations are in place.
Second_Notice_of_Proposed_Rulemaking_-_Secondhand_Dealers_(16_DCMR_10).pdf