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News
County officials cool to garage sale rules : News : Oswego Ledger-Sentinel : Hometown Newspaper for Oswego and Montgomery, IllinoisCounty officials cool to garage sale rules
| Restrictions would make 'people feel like criminals,' staffer told
| by Matt Schury
| 9/20/2012
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Residents of unincorporated Kendall County who enjoy selling their old knickknacks and junk may one day face a county ordinance regulating their sales.
However, County Board members balked at a proposal by the county's Planning Building and Zoning (PBZ) department to add an ordinance regulating garage sales, sending it back to the county's PBZ Committee to be reworked.
The board discussed the issue Tuesday morning and in detail at their committee of the whole meeting Sept. 13.
Angela Zubko, the county's senior planner, said the county currently has no ordinance regulating garage sales. The ordinance would allow garage sales in the county as a permitted use with regulations. It would also help combat the issue of residents who continuously hold garage sales.
"If you have nothing on your books, they can pretty much hold a business on their property nonstop; and we've had a lot of complaints about people that have garage sales every single day of the year and their neighbors are not very happy," Zubko told the board.
She explained the ordinance for the board and noted it would restrict hours of operation. It would also restrict people to holding only four garage sales a year for three days at a time. Additionally people would not be allowed to sell food or beverages if the board passes the ordinance as written. The ordinance would also address parking issues, according to Zubko.
Board Chairman John Purcell had objections to the time restrictions.
"I understand you don't want them year round but to put theses types of restrictions--I just think they're too much," he said. "Now if someone has a four day garage sale they are technically illegal, then we're going to get some bozo in the public who is going to come here and say, 'Hey, we're going to create a problem for our neighbor because I don't like my neighbor.'"
Purcell also didn't like the restriction regarding selling food.
"I tell you what, four (garage sales) a year seems kind of goofy to me and the idea of no food or beverage sale-let's say I'm having a garage sale and I want to bake some brownies and sell some brownies. This says it's illegal. That, to me, is just a little restrictive," he said.
Board member Nancy Martin said she has attended garage sales where little children sell lemonade or bottles of water and she sees nothing wrong with it.
One issue the board discussed is how the county could enforce the regulations if they are put into place.
"We're not going to go out there pursuing these, we're not going to go out there looking for garage sales. It's just to prevent the troubled ones," Zubko said.
Board member Jessie Hafenrichter also objected to the changes and didn't think the added rules and regulations were needed.
"You're going to make people feel like their criminals when they are just trying to have a garage sale," she said, adding she understood the problems with people have garage sales constantly.
Board member Suzanne Petrella agreed, adding that she didn't think the county should just make up indiscriminate rules that people are going to break.
"I feel like that's part of the nature of this county. It is more homey than some other counties and I also think it's wrong to create an ordinance that people are going to have to break," she said.
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