Roanoke, VA Business Licensing & Operations: Secondhand Dealers (2026)

Roanoke's junk dealer ordinance, City Code § 29-78, applies to anyone who purchases, sells, barters or exchanges discarded or abandoned used tangible personal property for resale within city limits. Before the Commissioner of the Revenue can issue a business license under Chapter 19, a would-be junk dealer must first produce a state license issued under former Code of Virginia § 54-826, and the city manager must approve, in writing, the specific location where the business will operate. That location approval is a separate sign-off from the license itself: without it, no license issues no matter how complete the state paperwork is.

The section also regulates canvassers, people who go door to door or through the city buying junk on a dealer's behalf. Canvassing for junk, or for any junk dealer, is unlawful unless the canvasser has been appointed in writing by a dealer already licensed under Chapter 19. The dealer, not the canvasser, is responsible for taking out a separate business license for every canvasser it appoints, and that license must be issued in the dealer's name while showing the canvasser's name on its face, so enforcement can trace any canvasser back to the dealer who authorized them.

Because the ordinance sits inside Chapter 19's general business-license scheme, those rules apply on top of it: under § 19-1.2, it is unlawful to engage in a licensed business without first obtaining the license, and operating without one is a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $1,000. A junk dealer who has been refused a license, or who never applied, is not relieved of the license tax simply because the business operated unlawfully.