Champaign, IL Business Licensing & Operations: Secondhand Dealers (2026)

B. No. 2022-144, adopted September 6, 2022, and businesses that trade in used goods are now regulated as junk dealers under Article II. Section 28-16 defines junk broadly to include scrap metal, old rope, rags, waste paper, discarded bottles when fewer than a gross of a kind or size, and wrecked vehicles, engines or machinery held more than ninety days, plus any manufactured article no longer used that is made of those materials. A junk dealer is anyone who buys, sells, barters, exchanges, collects, receives, stores or holds junk for sale, barter or exchange, and a junkyard is the premises where that business is conducted.

Section 28-31 requires a license from the City Clerk before keeping, maintaining, conducting or operating a junkyard in the City, and a separate license is required for each junkyard on noncontiguous lots, blocks, tracts or parcels. Section 28-32 requires a verified written application disclosing the applicant's name and address, trade name, legal description of the premises, size and location of each entrance and exit, and whether the site is enclosed by the seven-foot solid fence required by Section 28-18. Section 28-33 disqualifies any applicant who falsified an application, had a junkyard license revoked in the preceding twenty-four months, or fails the physical requirements of Section 28-17.

Under Section 28-34(b), a first conviction closes the junkyard for thirty days in addition to the fine, and a second violation voids the license outright, forfeiting all fees paid. 11.