By Angela Brown

Pawn shop goes extra mile to stop sale of stolen goods, says manager

Jul 18, 2018 | 11:42 AM

Surrounded by hanging musical instruments, a jingle dress, and various other used artifacts, the manager of a local large North Battleford pawn shop says she goes beyond duty on a daily basis not to sell stolen goods.

Tania Young of Linda’s Northern Pawn said in the past five years only 13 items in total have been seized by the RCMP that were reported stolen.

At North Battleford’s council meeting Monday, it was announced the Community Safety Officers will now be taking on the RCMPs work to monitor pawn shops to prevent the sale of stolen items.

Young wants to let people know that pawn shops must follow a strict set of rules by law, so stolen goods don’t end up on shelves.

“We have a system in place that most people don’t know,” she said. “When people come in here when they have been directed by the RCMP to do so, they are quite surprised to find out how really thorough we are in terms of identifying the person who is coming in to pawn, identifying the articles they have pawned.”

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Young said staff are “more than happy anytime, anywhere,” to assist a person or business looking for an item that was taken from their property by keeping a description of the item and the person’s contact information.

She said if the pawn shop staff suspect that something that has come into the store may be stolen, they call the RCMP first.

Young said just last week she was able to reunite a set of stolen tools with a local minister after he reported them missing and contacted the shop. 

While she said many residents might assume criminals usually try to sell their stolen goods to pawn shops, that is not the case.

“We are the last place people go,” Young said. “Statistically, that can be proven through a very simple search in the RCMP database. They actually access the same programs that we are using. They have an ID number and a password they log into, and they can see and count statistically how many items have come through the pawn shop that they have physically seized from us that are directly related to property theft in this community.

It’s all done in real time,” Young said.

When individuals come in to pawn items, they need to provide two items of government issued identification, and must include their address and phone number. The shop will then take their photo.

The shop also records all the items received by make, model number, and serial number and assigns a price. It then submits this information on the database which the RCMP are able to access at the same time, through a program called Business Watch International. 

angela.brown@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @battlefordsNOW