Mount Prospect, IL Business Licensing & Operations: Pawnbrokers (2026)

Section 23.117 of the Mount Prospect Village Code, titled Pawning Prohibited, sits in Chapter 23 of the Village Code, the offenses chapter, rather than in the business licensing chapters. That placement matters: the Village Board did not create a pawnbroker license with a fee and an inspection routine. It made the business itself unlawful. The Village Board adopted the prohibition by Ordinance 4967 on October 6, 1998, and the section has kept that adoption date in its history note since.

The prohibition has two working parts. First, no person may operate a pawnshop in the Village of Mount Prospect. Second, no person may otherwise engage in the business of receiving and holding personal property in pledge or as security for money or other things advanced to a prospective pawner or pledgor. The second clause reaches past storefront pawnshops. A business that lends cash against a watch, a guitar or a power tool held as collateral is engaged in the conduct the section describes, whatever name is on the door.

The only exception is written for lenders. The section states that it does not apply to banks, thrifts, or other licensed lending institutions engaged in the business of lending money and receiving commercial paper that may pledge personal property or security. In practice the exception protects the ordinary lending institutions along Route 83, Rand Road and downtown Mount Prospect from being swept into the ban when a borrower pledges property to them.

The Village Code sets a fine for violations of this article in Section 23.116, which sits directly before the pawning section. That penalty section applies to any provision of the article other than Section 23.115, and it sends the amount to Appendix A, Division III of the Village Code. The Mount Prospect Police Department enforces Chapter 23 offenses, and Community Development handles business license questions. Anyone who wants to open a pawn or collateral-loan business in the Village of Mount Prospect will not find a license path in the Code, because the section closes the business category entirely.