Police say consumer purchases at secondhand stores will now be electronically monitored to help track a series of robberies committed to fund drug addicts' heroin habits.
Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4, said he has an interest in updating the ordinance because many of his constituents are students, and highly vulnerable to burglaries.
The revised ordinance, proposed by Verveer provides police the means to operate more efficiently by requiring pawnshop owners to record their transactions electronically instead of on paper.
""The way things are, we have stacks and stacks of paper from pawn transactions we cannot keep up with because we have to input them manually,"" Madison Police Department Capt. Jim Wheeler explained.
Wheeler said the city needs to be aware the resale industry has the capacity to facilitate crime, making it easy for drug addicts to steal from citizens, then sell back stolen goods to secondhand dealers for quick money to feed their addictions.
Wheeler said if transactions were placed in a database, police could more efficiently recognize trends and arrest addicts.
""The bottom line is the ordinance is utterly useless to investigators and serving no real purpose,"" Verveer said. ""It's time we take advantage of technology and bring this process up to today's modern times.""
But many secondhand store owners who spoke at the meeting said inputting customers' purchases electronically violates the First Amendment.
""People will deter from viewing and listening to unpopular media because law enforcement will have access to it,"" A Room of One's Own owner Sandi Torkildson said. ""There is no information about how this is going to remain secure.
""As a police officer, I don't have time to pay attention to what kinds of music people are listening to,"" Wheeler said. ""There is too much going on in this city between people who are burglarizing, doing heroin and overdosing at convenience stores and behind the wheel.""
