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EDITORIALS Sch’dy needs new pawn shop rules

    Schenectady’s City Council has been known to champion solutions to problems that are worse than the problems themselves, but that doesn’t appear to be the case with its latest brainchild — a requirement that all merchants who buy and sell used goods in the city regularly report all related data to the Police Department.
    Such a requirement would help the police identify stolen goods, return them to their rightful owners and find out who took them in the first place. For example, a computerized database maintained by other departments was instrumental in helping Schenectady police bust up a major burglary ring last week.
    With a comprehensive reporting requirement in place, burglars would feel less comfortable fencing stolen goods; merchants and consumers now buying them — breaking the law in the process — would think twice before doing so because the likelihood of getting caught would be that much greater.
    The problem is how to impose such a requirement on smaller merchants, some of whom run shoestring operations and probably can’t afford the computers and video cameras that would be needed to comply with the law as envisioned by the city council. The solution is to have a mandatory law that doesn’t require immediate, computerized reporting. If the city wants to give merchants who choose to report electronically a financial incentive (as with a reduced licensing fee), that’s one thing; but the penalty for filing reports manually should not be as high as $1,000, as Councilman Gary Mc-Carthy suggests. Something along the lines of $250 would be more reasonable.
    And, as for the inability and/or unwillingness of merchants to file legible reports with specific information, that can — and should — be handled by police: Create a template with an .....................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....amp;EntityId=Ar00701

It's not their job to 'look' for stolen goods.....or.....is it????.......Just arrest the integrity challenged folks------leave the rest up to the legislators and
judges.......

see,,,,,,strong police force....doesn't equate to strong punishment/laws.........

let the judges/legilators live up to their names and stop 'pawning' with the police...........

how dare they stand at the podium and claim they 'care'.....I'm sure they do.....but,,,,,,they dont understand....and neither do the arbitors of the
contracts......the taxpayers suffer the incompetence.........