Plan to Limit Garage Sales Is No Bargain : Restricting the Activity to Twice a Year Is Too Severe and ‘Nothing We Can Enforce’

The yard sale, that most unfettered manifestation of small-scale capitalism, has developed enemies. So many, in fact, that several of the Los Angeles area’s smaller jurisdictions have cracked down on these activities in an unprecedented way.

In Long Beach, La Palma, Stanton, Beverly Hills and other localities, residents are limited to no more than two yard sales a year. It seems that neighbors and elected officials are weary of everything from the lingering blight of discarded garage-sale flyers to the congestion created by folks out shopping for a bargain.

But the real culprits are those who are running thinly disguised businesses that sell surprising amounts of new merchandise--sometimes as often as once a week. That type of activity should be curtailed, but a two-a-year limit on everyone is too severe.

Now the L.A. County Board of Supervisors has joined the overkill with the same restrictions for the county’s unincorporated areas. County Supervisor Mike Antonovich was right when he unsuccessfully urged his colleagues to allow six yard sales a year because of the area’s continuing recession. “Our residents should not be handcuffed in their efforts to further stretch already tight budgets,” he said.

The Los Angeles City Council has its own draft ordinance in the works that would extend the same two-a-year limit on yard sales. It remains to be seen what the city will do, but such proposals seem to be mostly for show and practically unenforceable.

There are 970,000 residents in the unincorporated portions of L.A. County, and nine zoning code enforcement regulators, county officials say. The city of Los Angeles has six code enforcement officers, and they are required to look into all kinds of zoning violations. Such a restriction on yard sales is “nothing we can enforce,” acknowledged a supervisor for the L.A. Department of Building and Safety’s citation division. He added that habitual yard sales are at the bottom of his duty list. That’s something to consider when the matter comes before the City Council for action.