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

The county's home occupation standards split business types into two lists. R(1)(k) names occupations permitted home occupations shall not in any event include, and secondhand merchandise retail sits fourth on that list. The exclusion is categorical: unlike the traffic and sign rules in the rest of subsection R, there is no size or scale threshold that lets a small resale operation qualify, and no variance path is written into this subsection itself. A resident who wants to run a secondhand goods business, consignment, thrift, or used-merchandise resale, therefore cannot locate it in a home under the home occupation provisions and instead needs a commercial or appropriate mixed-use zoning district in the unincorporated county, subject to whatever use-table standards and special use process apply there under § 350-42.

Because the exclusion lives inside Chapter 350's Use Standards, it binds only land in the unincorporated county under § 350-4; secondhand dealers inside Bloomington or Normal answer to those cities' own zoning and licensing codes rather than this county provision.