ECW Founder Tod Gordon Interview
Ronnie Polaneczky: Shop owner rips new pawn law
As owner of 150-year-old Carver W. Reed, the city's upscale pawn shop (yes, I'm aware that I just used "upscale" and "pawn shop" in the same phrase), he's tried to bust his industry's image as a sleazy operation where thieves fence stolen goods while lip-licking brokers pretend not to know the score.
Because he accepts only jewelry as collateral on the loans he makes at his store at 10th and Sansom, Gordon's shop looks like a quaint bank-and-jewelry boutique, with courteous clerks at the teller stations and sparkling baubles in the windows.
Many of his clients have been with him forever.
Some borrow against Rolexes and Cartiers to cover, say, a daughter's wedding or payroll costs during a slow month. Others, caught short between pension checks, pawn their pearls to pay Comcast before HBO gets cut off.
All know they'll be treated with dignity at Carver W. Reed (an institution of which I admit being a big fan).
So Gordon's enraged by City Council's passage yesterday of an ordinance he calls "demeaning" to his business.
"This sets us back 50 years," says Gordon, former president of the Pennsylvania Pawnbrokers Association.
"Everything I've tried to do to professionalize the industry is gone, boom, just like that. This is an insult to my clients."
Pennsylvania's pawn industry is already heavily regulated by the state's Banking Department.
When a client pawns an item, he must produce a state-issued photo ID and Social Security number. That information, along with a description of the pawned item, is entered onto paper forms shared with Philadelphia Police. District officers are supposed to fetch the forms at the end of each business day.
Retrieving the data on a daily basis is a ridiculous task in a city that needs its officers chasing perps, not paper. As for sifting through thousands of daily entries, investigators told me it's a near-impossible task.
Bill No. 090910 will bring operations up to date, and then some.
It requires operators of pawn shops and precious-metals businesses (think cash-for-gold) to snap a digital photo of each customer and to obtain both an electronic imprint of the client's left thumb and a copy of the client's state-issued photo ID.
The info, plus photos and descriptions of items being pawned or sold, must then be entered into an Internet-accessible tracking system and uploaded daily to the Police Department's major-crimes unit.
Cops say the new law will help them find stolen property quicker and will deter thieves.
"We can't wait for it to take effect," says Major Crimes Capt. Len Ditchkofsky. "We have no electronic system to track any property that pawn shops and precious-metals dealers take in."
Instead, investigators rely on alert brokers to help them recover stolen stuff. Like the one who alerted them that a guy had been to his shop nine days in a row to pawn GPS units. Cops determined that the units were stolen in a auto-theft spree, nailed the perp and returned the items to their owners.
But what if he'd gone to nine shops, instead of one? Under the paper system, it's unlikely police would have spotted the trend in time to do anything about it.
"I've been telling the cops for years that [the current system] is a waste of time," says Larry Charles, manager of K&A Money Loan in Kensington, who supports the new law. "They need to computerize. The only people who'd object to it are people up to no good."
Not true, counters Gordon.
"I already take photo ID's and Social Security numbers. Now I have to ask my clients for a thumbprint? And have them sit for a picture? That gets uploaded to the cops? Where will the Big Brother stuff end?" asks Gordon, a Lower Merion resident whose son's computer was invaded during the township's recent webcam screw-up. "Whatever happened to privacy?"
Jewelers Row merchants, who often purchase pieces and will have to adhere to the new law, feel similarly offended.
"This is going to drive customers to the suburbs," says Safian & Rudolph's Hy Goldberg, president of the Jewelers Row Association. "This is anti-consumer consumerism."
Gordon also frets that the PD's tracking system won't be secure and that his customer information will be hacked.
"I've built this company's reputation on trust," he says. "I have no confidence that the system will be safe."
The law can always be amended if problems arise, says John Cerrone, chief of staff to Councilman Jack Kelly, who introduced the bill (which passed by a vote of 17-0).
"The police need help to clear these crimes," he says. "This system will be state-of-the-art."
Except to a guy like Gordon, who tries to conduct business the old-fashioned way, to the extent he can:
By presuming clients are innocent and simply in need of some quiet cash, obtained with dignity, from a man who doesn't see them as scammers in waiting.
Philly.com
