Irvington, NJ Business Licensing & Operations: Pawnbrokers (2026)

Chapter 650's Article IX, Limited and Conditional Uses, gives pawnbrokers a single, freestanding standard at § 650-67 rather than a chapter of their own. The chapter defines PAWNBROKER, in its Article III definitions, as an establishment in which the proprietor lends money on the security of personal property pledged in his or her keeping. Section 650-67 applies wherever pawnbroking is permitted as of right or with a conditional use permit under Article VI's district use tables, and its one substantive requirement is a 500-foot buffer that runs in two directions: a pawnbroker cannot locate within 500 feet of another pawnbroker, which prevents pawnshops from clustering in a single commercial strip, and it cannot locate within 500 feet of a residential use, a school, a place of worship, a hospital, a philanthropic or eleemosynary institution, a park, or a playground.

In a dense, fully built-out township like Irvington, where residential parcels, schools, churches, and parks sit close together throughout the commercial corridors, that 500-foot radius functions as a real siting filter: it can rule out a storefront even in a business zoning district that otherwise lists pawnbroking as a conditional use. Irvington's general Township Code carries no separate pawnbroker licensing chapter alongside its other regulated-trade chapters, such as Chapter 174, Barbershops, or Chapter 180, Beauty Products, Hair Braiding and Nail Salons, which makes § 650-67 the entity's sole operative pawnbroker standard rather than one layer among several.

An applicant still has to obtain conditional use approval from the Zoning Board under Article VI before opening, in addition to satisfying the distance test.