Pawtucket, RI Business Licensing & Operations: Secondhand Dealers (2026)

Chapter 251, rewritten in its entirety in 1996 by Chapter No. 2420, licenses four separate activities under § 251-1: keeping a shop or storehouse for junk, old metals or secondhand articles (wholesale junk license); gathering junk or secondhand articles by bag, wagon or cart (retail junk license); selling or dealing in the secondhand articles classified under § 251-14 (secondhand shop license); and running an automobile junkyard. Secondhand shop and junkyard licenses run for a year starting each May 1 and must specify the assessor's lot and plat where the business operates; wholesale and retail junk licenses run the same annual term.

Fees under § 251-3 are $50 for a wholesale junk license, $5 for a foundryman or retail junk gatherer, $100 for an automobile junkyard, and $100 for a secondhand shop license, with no partial-year rebate. A new license in a location not already used for the trade requires a City Council public hearing advertised weekly for two weeks, and the Council must deny the license if owners of the majority of land within 200 feet file an objection. Every application first goes to the Chief of Police for approval or disapproval.

m. Automobile junkyards must operate entirely inside a building, sit more than 600 feet from a state highway and 300 feet from a park, school, church or cemetery, and be screened by a fence at least six feet high. Secondhand shop licenses are split into Class A (used vehicles) and Class B (used auto parts); a former Class C category was repealed in 2023.