By Crystal McGough
The Clay City Council had a full house at its public hearing tonight to discuss an amendment to the city’s Business Ordinance to accommodate a pawnshop.
At the Aug. 6 council meeting, the council announced that PeeWee’s Pawn, in Pelham, is looking to open a second location in the old Movie Gallery location off of Old Springville Road in Clay.
Currently, the business license fee for pawnshops is set at $5,000, as pawnshops are classified in the Adult Entertainment category. The council was considering changing the ordinance to classify pawnshops in the same category with consignment shops to offer a lower business license fee.
The council voted unanimously tonight to table the amendment ordinance for 30 days.
Councilwoman Becky Johnson said that the reason for tabling the ordinance was to give the Planning and Zoning Commission a chance to review it and to give the council time to review the comments they heard during the public hearing.
“Before a decision is made…I ask that you give the P&Z an opportunity to look at it,” Steve Sebastian, Chairman of the Planning and Zoning Commission, said. “I’m for any business, but I think the P&Z, and the city plan that we have out there, we need a chance to look at that and look at this pawnshop and where we really intended it from a Planning and Zoning standpoint.”
Several Clay citizens, and even one Trussville citizen, spoke against the ordinance amendment for pawnshops.
PeeWee’s owner Erica Neel and RE/MAX Realtor Jonathan Hyatt spoke in favor of the amendment.
We’ll have a detailed report of resident’s responses online tomorrow
.