Kokua Line

By June Watanabe

Thursday, March 27, 1997

Frequent ‘garage sales’
raise official suspicion

Many people in my neighborhood hold garage sales. One neighbor used to hold regular sales that I immensely loved going to, but has not held one for the past couple of months. When I stopped to ask why, she told me a city building inspector gave her a citation, saying she couldn't resell items they bought elsewhere. Are there formal, written rules governing garage sales? Do they specifically cover who may or may not hold a sale and what they may or may not sell? Why was my neighbor singled out?

First off, your neighbor was "singled out" because another neighbor filed a complaint.

"We don't go door to door" checking on garage sales, said William Deering, head of the Building Department's housing code section. "We go out if we get a complaint." (Building inspectors act as the enforcement arm for the city Department of Land Utilization.)

In your neighbor's case, Deering said he issued a citation after she acknowledged that some items being sold had been bought elsewhere, even though she maintains they were purchased as part of other items used by her family.

There is is no specific definition for "garage sales" in the city's land use ordinance, said planner Carol Whitesell. In general, garage sales are permitted as "an occasional accessory activity that's customarily associated with residential living," she said.

The city, by interpretation, has indicated "that garage sales should not be used for resale of items that were not used by the household," she said. That's to prevent someone from turning a garage sale into a business, Whitesell said.

"A lot of people go to swap meets" and apparently buy up items to sell from their homes. The land use code doesn't "allow you to sell new items. (Garage sales are) supposed to be limited to household and personal items no longer being used," Whitesell said.

Also, while there's no language that specifies "a permissible frequency" on the number of garage sales a homeowner may have, "partly it's a matter of judgment," Whitesell said. "The more frequently a single property has a garage sale, the closer it comes to looking like permanent retail use."

Your neighbor, who says she is not running a business, hopes to have another sale soon, one acceptable to the city.