Change coming for pawnshops and precious metal dealers in Golden Valley
BY SARA OLSTAD – SUN NEWSPAPERS INTERN
The Golden Valley City Council has voted 4-0 to approve an ordinance to require all pawnshops and precious metal dealers to electronically report all their transactions directly through a database designated by the department.
Currently after receiving the daily transaction reports via fax, the police must scan all the information into an internal database. Current Golden Valley listings are not easily accessible by law enforcement outside of the department.
Under the new ordinance approved on first reading in June, the Golden Valley police plan to require the reports be submitted using the Automated Pawn System, which is administered by the Minneapolis Police Department and shared with more than 225 law enforcement agencies in Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Police operations commander Nate Gove said this change would allow the Golden Valley police to easily share its data with other departments.
The change is also expected to reduce police staff time because the department will not have to compile the transaction receipts each day. Instead the information entered by dealers goes directly to the shared database.
Police are working with the city’s lone licensed precious metal dealer, Jewelry Manufacturer’s Exchange, Inc., 677 Winnetka Ave. N., to implement this change, Gove said.
While there are no pawn shops in Golden Valley, Jewelry Manufacturer’s Exchange Manager Cathy Przybylski agrees that the change will likely be beneficial in the long run.
“It’s clearer documentation, and it is what other major cities use for their record keeping so it’s part of that database,” she said. “It’s definitely from a security standpoint to monitor what’s being sold and what’s being brought it so that’s fine.”
