Further limits proposed on payday, title loan sites
The Shelby County Commission on Monday changed a proposed law that limits where payday and title loan businesses can be built in the county, specifying that these establishments cannot be within a quarter mile of residential districts.
The proposed law -- which commissioners then approved on the second of three readings and the Memphis City Council adopted on third and final reading last week -- also specifies that these businesses cannot be within 1,000 feet of each other and require a special-use permit if business owners want to locate in zones other than industrial.
But the problem with the amendment, proposed by Commissioner Mike Carpenter, is the Memphis City Council must also approve it.
Because the proposed ordinance is a joint city-county ordinance that will change countywide zoning codes, council and commission must adopt identical versions, said Asst. County Atty. Robert Rolwing.
"If, for some reason, they do not agree, then there would be no ordinance," Rolwing said.
The point of the ordinance is to regulate an industry -- known for its quick, high-interest loans -- that Carpenter and the council's sponsor, Bill Morrison, said can sink the poor into unmanageable debt and destroy the perception of a neighborhood.
An original version of the law required the businesses be kept 1,000 feet from each other, churches, schools, neighborhoods and day cares.
But the payday and title lending business owners objected to the ordinance and hired lobbyists and attorneys to fight its passage. Last week, the industry's attorneys worked out the compromise version.
The commission adopted it in committee last week, but it didn't sit right with Carpenter, who said the special-use permit system meant the business owners could hire well-connected attorneys and lobbyists to get permits where they want.
"There doesn't need to be anymore of these businesses, particularly near neighborhoods," he said.
Industry representatives objected to Carpenter's amendment.
Chuck Welsh, a Nashville-based attorney representing the Community Financial Services Association, an advocacy organization for the payday advance industry, said this will make it impossible for these businesses to operate because there aren't any retail commercial locations more than a quarter mile from homes.
"It's a retail commercial establishment, so if you're forced to go to an industrial zone, which is where you would have to go," he said, "you're out of business."
Source : http://www.commercialappeal.com