Council ponders new ordinance limiting length of yard sales

The Red Oak City Council held discussion on a possible ordinance regulating the limit on rummage and garage sale durations.
Red Oak Mayor Shawnna Silvius said there were some individuals in the city limits  that basically have year-long rummage sales. Silvius said there were three other communities that had passed ordinances, including Dubuque and Bettendorf.
City administrator Lisa Kotter said the question came up after she was contacted by someone with a complaint.
“I got a call, and as I’m reading through the code book, I was looking for something that would pertain to the situation. It could be said that you have nuisance junk in your front yard with your seven tables of stuff. I went to one of the houses myself and it was an unattended rummage sale. There was no money box, no nothing, and the stuff had been outside for three weeks,” advised Kotter. “So when I look at that situation, what is it that can be said they’re in violation of? I can say this probably isn’t wise. You have your stuff out here, it’s been out in the rain for three weeks, but you don’t really have any teeth to make an issue. And this is probably my fourth city that I’ve had to do this in because there’s one resident in every town that likes to just leave their stuff on all the time.”
Kotter said some cities will go as far as saying people have to come and get a permit, but she didn’t think that was the best option.
Councilperson Jeanice Lester said the idea had some merits but she didn’t see how it was enforceable.
“How do you police it? I mean, that’s the problem. If you get a garage sale and someone notices it on day one, then it can be mentioned, but it could be 10 days before anybody ever knows that the garage sale’s been going on. I don’t see how we police it, but I agree it’s an issue,” commented Lester.
Kotter noted another similar sale that went on for weeks and weeks but with an ordinance, it would have potentially been closed sooner. As for policing, Councilperson Adam Hietbrink said policing would be handled by the neighbors.
As for the ordinance, Kotter suggested some sort of limit to the duration.
“If you give people four days, nothing else, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, most people don’t have four day run or sales, but at least if  you want to stay on there for all four days, then we didn’t say you can’t. We don’t have to even cover negatives. Whatever you want to do in your four days, you can do it, but after four days, if they violate that it would be a municipal infraction. If they refuse to clean it up then we can treat it just like they have garbage in their yard,” explained Kotter.
Councilperson Tim Fridolph felt that there shouldn’t be a policing of the number of sales, but the duration.
“I wouldn’t say I’m concerned about policing how many they have per year, but I think there definitely needs to be a limit if they have a sale that started out Thursday and it ended on Sunday and then the next one starts the next day on Monday,” Fridolph said.
Councilperson Brian Bills asked how the city would account between a yard sale and a garage sale. Hietbrink said there were options.
“A yard sale is sitting out, while a garage sale is going to be confined. So we have to differentiate between the two. That stuff is sitting out in the yard and getting rained on for weeks and weeks,” advised Hietbrink.
Kotter said if the city wanted to do something it needed to be done, as currently their hands were tied.
“We have one complaint, but there’s nothing we can do about it. So we either have to have a code that most of the time you’re not worried about enforcing because nobody’s violating the rule or you have to have something that says I can enforce it based on this code. Stuff that’s sitting out right now can’t be enforced by the current code,” stated Kotter.
Kotter added it was entirely up to the council if it wanted to take some sort of action or not.
“We can issue an ordinance, or you can just say, we’re not going to do anything. And then when people call, we’re going to say, sorry, we don’t regulate those. And people can leave their stuff out for three weeks and it can be rained on and left on tables for weeks. All I can say from practice in other communities is that 99.99% of the people that have normal rummage sales are never going to care. And you don’t need to enforce it, because nobody else puts their stuff out for three weeks. So in this town of 2,700 households you have one or two that do that, and you could have enforced. You’re not trying to enforce it on other people who have normal sales who put it out for a weekend, take the rest to church or donate it away.”
Kotter also said the city would be hamstrung if it went to court because something they may not deem as useful may be argued by the owner as being valuable.
With only one complaint received, Bradley said she wasn’t sure that an entire ordinance was needed. Kotter wasn’t sure if the person should be given a pass and do what they want.
Fridolph said the whole point of bringing this to the council’s attention was for action to be taken.
“At what point do we say this isn’t okay anymore? Because if Lisa wouldn’t have gone out to that residence we discussed earlier after three weeks, they could still be sitting there six weeks later. I think you have to do that for a neighborhood, because it’s just not good. It looks like they’ve just got junk in the backyard,” Fridolph said.
Bills said he would be open to seeing some sort of an ordinance for review. He was also  looking forward to getting a new nuisance officer hired for them to weigh in on the situation.
If the items were in the garage, the council decided that would be a different scenario as the garage door could be closed and the items unseen, but it would require a door that could be closed every night.
The council took no action on the proposed ordinance.