ANAHEIM : City Rejects Proposals to Curb Garage Sales

The City Council this week backed away from supporting proposals that would have limited the number of garage and yards sales residents would be allowed each year.

Instead, the council asked the city’s Code Enforcement Department to increase crackdowns on residents who hold sales repeatedly and cause blight, and on sales that feature large quantities of new items and are held for commercial purposes.

“Those are the problems,” said John Poole, code enforcement officer. “We don’t have complaints about someone who cleans out their garage and wants to have an occasional sale.”

By opting to increase enforcement, the council rejected two proposed ordinances. The first proposal would limit such sales to three times a year, at the discretion of the resident holding the event. The other proposal would restrict sales to the first weekends in February, June and October of each year.

The city’s zoning code bans the sales, but it is rarely enforced, officials said.

A handful of residents at this this week’s council meeting criticized the leaders for even considering a limit on garage sales.

“This is really ridiculous,” resident Marilyn Hauk said. “Here we sit deciding whether people can have garage sales. Maybe next we’ll set laws stating what kind of apples we should use to bake pies.

“I think it’s disgusting that the city would take the time to go through all this trouble.”