Carlsbad, CA Business Licensing & Operations: Secondhand Dealers (2026)

Section 5.08.090 of the Carlsbad Municipal Code, part of Chapter 5.08 (License Taxes), sets a $100.00 per year license tax on any 'junk business, junk dealer or junk collector,' and conditions that license on first obtaining a special permit from the City Council, giving the council discretion to approve, deny or condition the operation before it opens. This provision has covered dealers in used and scrap materials since it was adopted by Ordinance 6040 in 1967 and has not been amended since. Carlsbad once regulated secondhand dealers specifically through a separate Chapter 5.40, but the city's ordinance disposition table confirms Chapter 5.40 was repealed in its entirety, leaving no freestanding secondhand-dealer licensing chapter in the current code.

As a result, a business that buys and resells used merchandise in Carlsbad is licensed either as a general business under Chapter 5.04's classification system (Classification C covers 'specialty stores' generally, at 30 cents per $1,000 of gross receipts) or, if its stock qualifies as junk or scrap, under the special-permit junk-dealer license in § 5.08.090. Zoning law separately defines a 'secondhand or thrift shop' at § 21.04.490 as a place of business buying, selling, trading or consigning previously owned property, but that section only sets a land-use definition; it does not create a business-licensing or reporting scheme.

Any secondhand or junk dealer operating without the City Council's special permit and the $100 annual license tax is unlicensed under Title 5's general licensing provisions and subject to enforcement under Chapter 5.04.