I have held many yard sales in my lifetime and I've enjoyed visiting many that have been held by others. I really enjoy the excitement in the scavenger hunt because you never know what treasure you might come across. The rules have sure changed over the years, when it comes to garage and yard sales.
In many jurisdictions, you simply no longer have the freedom to start selling your belongings on your own property, whenever you would like to.
Nowadays,
yard sales come with very strict city code enforcement and there are aggressive misdemeanor fines that you can get slapped with if you haven't conducted your sale in the right way.
You can't just take a few old items you have around the house and start selling them on your property to others who might be interested. First, you will need to obtain the appropriate permission slip before you can start selling your own property on your own property.
The rules surrounding yard sales vary depending on where you live, but it's clear that over the years an increasing number of jurisdictions have been cracking down on those who have been trying to hold yard sales but without going through the proper regulatory permission hoops first.
During a recent city council meeting in Arlington, Texas, officials there have proposed moving in this direction and severely restricting the freedom and liberty of citizens to hold their own sale.
Neighborhood complaints have been cited as the most pressing reason for the seemingly needed restriction on liberty. Other concerns have been allegations like multiple yard sales lowering the quality of life for others and that such actions would devalue property for other owners. Officials have proposed a new ordinance that would require families living in Arlington to first seek to obtain permission before holding any sale.
They would also be banned from having more than 2 sales every year.
In the past, we would commonly post dozens of signs around the neighborhood in order to direct traffic to the right area and be able to locate the yard sale. But if the new ordinance passes in Arlington things are going to change, citizens will only be able to put up one sign and that sign will need to be on their own yard.
If the ordinance passes, one option that the citizens might have in order to get around the 1 sign rule would be to seek out and arrange a voluntary transaction with other property owners in the area, to see if they could place their yard sale sign on their property so as to gain more exposure and have more signs present in the neighborhood. But even that might be a little bit too much freedom.
Should we really be making criminals out of people who are simply trying to sell their own property on their own property?
Civil liberty experts argue that the restriction on how many signs can be placed, is a direct violation to their First Amendment rights. As well, the ordinance itself is seen as a punishment toward people for simply using their own property in a way that some others don't deem to be fit. Similar regulations to those being proposed in Arlington, have already been passed in areas like Orange Park, Florida, and those changes have reaped lawsuits in return for their seeming violation of basic civil liberties.
If Arlington goes ahead with the changes, anyone caught in violation of the law would see a fine around $500 and they could be hit with that fine for every day that they hold any sale that isn't in compliance with the rules. Many citizens in the area have already expressed their discontent with the proposed changes and several have flooded into Arlington City Hall to show how they feel.
The proposal was allegedly introduced by the Municipal Policy committee and there should be no surprise that the early draft of the proposal has angered many residents and isn't sitting well.
The proposal needs to undergo revision before it gets formally presented to the City Council.
Pics:
JustDuckyErrands via justduckyerrands.com/mastering-the-yard-sale/
365etobicoke via 365etobicoke.com/etobicoke-garage-sales-3/
Giphy and imgflip.com
Oliver Twist via imgflip
Sources:
http://ij.org/arlington-messes-yard-sales/
https://arlingtonvoice.com/arlington/politics/2017/07/10/arlington-citizens-reject-proposed-garage-sale-rules-town-hall
https://arlingtonvoice.com/arlington/politics/2017/07/06/proposed-rules-would-require-permits-garage-sales-arlington
https://www.thespruce.com/dos-and-donts-for-yard-sale-shoppers-1313708
http://www.arlington-tx.gov/cdp/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2014/05/Ordinance-UDC.pdf
http://ij.org/action-post/california-town-yard-sale-police/
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Yup. Cracking down everywhere. no question of yard sale here. Our local government is a HOA.
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ahaha that is great! Super artistic photo.
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Hi @danielownsall I've published an article about you, check it out, if you can, thanks.
26 Best Steemit Bloggers Of The Day To Follow 31st July 2017
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We have an annual village yard sale event and there are no such restrictions in England thankfully! A great way to declutter and pick up some plants and kids toys.
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Shame on you Arlington, Texas for trying to restrict yard sales. Yes restricting sales does infringe on my first amendment rights. Well you can tell the city that I sure will never move to their community. If you are restricted on WHAT you can do with your property - do you really OWN your property? Of course my opinion is if you have to pay taxes on what you own you do not own it. It is an illusion. Please know I do pay my taxes in full each year. However I own my denim jeans because I do not pay taxes on them. And I love a good estate sale! Go to them every week to save money. I wonder if this is affecting Estate Sale companies who do three day in home sales? Thanks for sharing - Troy
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meep
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go away meep.
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meep
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meep
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meep
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meep
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I'm from the east coast originally. they call a yard sale a tag sale. Government needs to stay out of our yard sales!
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tag sale? that's a new one! 😊 👍
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Apparently, In Surrey BC having yard sales is technically illegal but not enforced as there are tons every weekend. Some people rely on the used goods economy for survival, and stopping them is hitting the most vulnerable population I think.
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Wow. I sure am relieved I live in the sensible state of Tex...hey, wait a minute...
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lol!
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So first of all I live in India and yard sales here are rarely seen. So I genuinely envy the people in America who are able to go and find various items in yard sales.
But after reading this post it seems nothing is as easy as people show in TV serials.
But this doesn't make sense at all you want to sell your property to others that too on your own damn property but you have to get permission from the government.
How is that fair??
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That's OK, because as long as you are free and safe, there's nothing to worry about. lol NOT.
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@doitvoluntarily! Sad to hear that! We should have the right to sell what we have in front of our house!
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It is a pity that people like to complicate everything. We do not have sales near houses. People sell unnecessary things, in some parts of the city.
Thank you for the article!
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This is happening in Texas too, bah. It's only getting worse and worse. Kids can't have lemonade stands, we can't feed the homeless, can't have gardens in our front yard most places. I hope you get enough people to stop them. Its hard to stay within the law since its always changing and you never know what new thing you can't do.
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You can't?
Or you won't?
If you did, and someone told you to stop, what's stopped you from getting the neighborhood watch together, and ensuring freedom?
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Well you can, but you get a fine, and go to jail. If you grow a garden in your front yard and they tell you to stop, and you don't. Your house can potentially get taken away. I mean you can resist.
The neighborhood watch are the ones who start enforcing these rules for the city.. Neighborhood watches don't watch out for cops for you, they watch for people doing illegal things. Like feeding the homeless and having lemonade stands. so you could have a lemonade stand and make 10 or 20$, but the cops will come and give you a 100$ fine for operating without a license. Neighborhoods watches job is to stop and report criminal activity, not to stop the cops from anything at all
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Perhaps you should make a new neighbor watch then, one that protects freedom, instead of lessening freedom and snitching on neighbors.
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So your neighborhood watch would go stop police from issuing tickets? I will just move where you live haha.. Here neighborhood watches are the people who call the police for every single reason.. Any suspicion. The nosy neighbors are the ones who run the neighborhood watches around here. I guess they may be different some places
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I doubt they're different, but I wish they were.
A better world would prohibit snitches from ruining nice things, and protect the freedom of people.
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That's the militias that the media always talks shit on.. it is a sad world. Going to these meeting that decide that fate of city ordinance or BLM land laws and seeing such a small number of people there, and it's mostly the shitty people, taking away people's rights while they are at work. When good people band together they are a militia, when bad people band together they are government. Something will happen, like the coin market, we will have a correction in society. I hope anyways!
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Definitely worth an upvote and a resteem :)
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thank you!
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Interesting Topic, Never knew that a garage/yard sale was regulated by law, I live in a third world Country and you can do these things freely. Do you think it is dumb that the garage/yard sales are regulated?
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https://steemit.com/love/@sharoon/what-is-important-according-to-you-money-or-true-love
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Hey @doitvoluntarily , I have started a podcast recently where I interview other entrepreneurs.
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Over here in the Netherlands the rules are definitely leaner. You can have a yard sale as long as you only sell your second hand stuff. Of course when you start operating a business for profit it becomes another story.
Recently many people have been organizing what they call 'junk routes' through various neighborhoods in my region. Often these kinds of events are organized by the municipalities, but these junk routes aren't. Most of them are completely voluntary and anyone in the neighborhood can participate.
Great opportunity to promote some voluntarism and agorism, right? :-)
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Sickening! My wife and i love yard sales, it's a great way to make an extra buck. Our small town in TN also requires a yard sale permit., it's ridiculous. My items, my yard...I'm going to do whatever the hell I want to with them. Enjoyed reading this, thanks for posting!
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That's ridiculous not to be able to put up signs and to have to have a permit, I hope that never hacienda here I stop at every garbage sale from seeing the signs on the road and I love to have them, ridiculous
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"It would be a shame if we let you sell your property... because then we'd have to admit it's your property and you aren't our property." - The Government
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Wow I thought a place I once lived was bad. They had the rule of no more than 3 yard sales per year and you could only have it for one day and never 2 weekends in a row.
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That is ridiculous. So glad America is free. Selling YOUR stuff on YOUR property shouldnt come with that much of a process and so many restrictions. If there should even be a process/restrictions at all to have a yard sale.
Although it doesnt surprise me too much considering with property taxes we are basically just renting our own land. Why not make having a yard sale as difficult as possible?
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That's far out man!
I dont see why people shouldn't be allowed to have yard sales on thier own property. So typical of politicians to meddle in everyones private business.
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All those rules are becoming ridiculous. This reminds me why, among many other reasons, we moved to Cambodia. At least you can still live a free life here.
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I think in our area there is a restriction on how many yard sales you can have per year. I guess some people could make it their full time job. Buy cheap junk and re-sell it for more. There is a storage place here that people drag their stuff out every weekend to sell it. More power to them!
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Had heard that this was coming several years ago. No more tax write offs for donations too. Maybe we are just supposed to dump our stuff and hope the less fortunate can find and use it. Makes absolutely no sense to me. Thanks for the post. 🐓🐓
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terrible situation. I am worried of the day they start shutting down or ticketing people that sell on buy/sell/trade groups. Its sad America was founded on trading and is now frowned upon and considered "illegal" without uncle sam getting his cut.
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