Photo courtesy of @mayorvincegray

Last week Councilmember Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6) was expressing shock that two GameStop locations in and around Capitol Hill had been accused of buying and reselling stolen phones. Now he wants to punish them and other such businesses for it.

Tomorrow Wells will introduce legislation that would allow the city to suspend the licenses of any business caught peddling stolen phones. The bill would follow in the footsteps of other moves made by city officials since last year, including arresting people accused of heading up fencing operations and working with cell phone service providers to allow residents to remotely disable their phones if they are stolen.

Last year we wrote about a police raid on a Manny and Olga’s pizza restaurant on Georgia Avenue, where a number of employees were arrested after having use the storefront to buy and sell stolen phones and electronic gadgets. Other businesses in the area had similarly been raided for allegedly playing part in the theft of phones, which spiked last year.