Kalispell City Council puts pawn-shop plan on hold burner

The Kalispell City Council voted Monday to indefinitely table a pawn-shop and secondhand store ordinance.

Instead, the council plans to use several work sessions to perfect the ordinance, which came under scrutiny at the Oct. 6 council meeting due to vague language that some local pawn-shop owners and employees felt left loopholes involving who is required to adhere to the ordinance.

Owners also said they thought several sections were unfair to pawn shops.

The ordinance required pawn and secondhand stores to use an online software called LeadsOnline that would connect the inventory of those businesses to the Kalispell Police Department. Stores selling repurchased or secondhand items would log their new inventory daily, allowing police to search for items reported as stolen.

No dates have been set for the work sessions.

The council also postponed its discussion of the Somers Bay Trading Co./Captain’s Marine planned-unit development request because the requester could not attend meetings during November.

The council will take up the request during the first meeting in December.

The council’s next work session on Monday, Nov. 10, will discuss the city’s growth policy.

The policy does not create law or regulate development, but instead is a community guide for making land-use decisions. Plan It 2030 will look at Kalispell city limits, land beyond city limits where annexation could be reasonable over the next 10 years, and the Growth Policy Planning Area that extends three miles from the current city limits. The city hopes to draw public comment on the policy.

The full policy can be viewed online at www.kalispell.com/mayor_and_city_council/documents/DRAFTGrowthPolicy.pdf.

Monday’s work session starts at 7 p.m.

All city offices will be closed Nov. 11 in recognition of Veterans Day. The next regular council meeting is Nov. 17 at 7 p.m., at Kalispell City Hall.