Lacey, WA Business Licensing & Operations: Pawnbrokers (2026)

Chapter 5.32 of the Lacey Municipal Code licenses two trades. A pawnbroker is anyone engaged in whole or in part in loaning money on the security of pledges, deposits or conditional sales of personal property. A secondhand dealer is anyone engaged in whole or in part in buying or selling secondhand personal property, metal junk, or melted metals. The chapter excludes dealers who accept a secondhand article in exchange for a new article of the same character, bona fide registered charitable or nonprofit organizations, and persons regulated by chapter 46.70 RCW (§ 5.32.010).

Under § 5.32.020 the yearly license fee is set by resolution of the city council, the license is issued for the current calendar year only, the fee can be prorated for the quarters remaining, and the license is not transferable. The applicant files a written application with the finance department giving the applicant's full name, the business location, the nature of the business, and residence and employment for the preceding five years (§ 5.32.030). The chief of police investigates character and reports within thirty days, and the finance department issues the license only if the applicant is of law-abiding character and the place of business is in the proper zone (§ 5.32.040). A denied applicant gets fifty percent of the application fee back after ten days (§ 5.32.050) and has ten days to appeal to the city council (§ 5.32.060).

Every loan, purchase or sale goes into a permanent English-language record with the date, the employee, the other party's name, signature, sex, age, address, hair and eye color, race, height and weight, the owner's name and address, a property description, the price or amount loaned, and any pawn ticket number. Secondhand dealers skip the record for articles with a reasonable value of less than twenty-five dollars (§ 5.32.070). Law enforcement can inspect the records and goods during ordinary business hours (§ 5.32.080).

Dealers in firearms, power equipment, electronics, jewelry, precious metals and items identified through a serial number furnish the chief of police a transcript before noon each day covering the previous day (§ 5.32.090). Pawnbrokers issue numbered pawn tickets with matching tags (§ 5.32.100) and follow the interest rates and redemption period in RCW 19.60.060, incorporated by reference (§ 5.32.110).