Santa Barbara County, CA Business Licensing & Operations: Secondhand Dealers (2026)

Chapter 26A defines a 'secondhand dealer' under Sec. 26A-3(d) as any person whose principal business is 'buying, selling, trading, taking in pawn, accepting for sale on consignment, accepting for auctioning or auctioning secondhand tangible personal property,' or anyone whose secondhand transactions exceed 20 percent of their gross sales, with an exclusion for paid auctioneers. Sec. 26A-4(a) makes each permittee responsible for ensuring employees and agents comply with the chapter, and violations by staff can trigger administrative action against the permit itself. Sec. 26A-4(d) bars accepting any item with a removed or altered serial number.

Sec. 26A-4(g) requires every item received by pledge, purchase, consignment or trade, on or off premises but within the county, to be reported daily to the Santa Barbara sheriff's department on approved forms, itemizing type, manufacturer, trade name, serial number, model number, inscriptions and, for jewelry, carat weight, stone type and metal type; no permittee may hold an item longer than 24 hours without filing that report under Sec. 26A-4(g)(4). Sec. 26A-4(k) requires the permanent record, transaction slips and property reports to be kept on the premises for three years and open to sheriff's department inspection during business hours, and Sec.

26A-4(l) separately lets any sheriff's deputy audit the dealer's business records under Financial Code Section 21206. Sec. 26A-4(n) exempts purchases for which the dealer holds an original manufacturer or distributor invoice from the identification and reporting rules in subsections (c) through (h).