Defer measure on pawn shops

The City Council has not yet abandoned its well-intentioned efforts to help police crack stolen property cases. But perhaps it should postpone them.

The original proposals, Bills 51 and 52, sought stricter reporting of transactions by pawnbrokers and secondhand dealers and required them to file reports on an electronic database. The intent was to provide a tool that more readily enables police to recover stolen property and garner the evidence for prosecution, with the goal of stemming Honolulu’s property crime rates.

But the requirement for electronic reports had to be stripped out, because a state law currently allows the businesses to file either electronically or by submitting a paper report. Unfortunately, that essentially deprives the legislation of its teeth.

At this point it makes sense to shelve the bills temporarily, while focus shifts to the state Capitol. When lawmakers convene the next regular session in January, they can make electronic filing mandatory. The Council then can reconsider the original proposals.

The advantages of electronic filing are clear. The paper filing systems are too difficult to access readily enough to be of much help tracking stolen goods, most of which will be fenced and out of reach by the time investigators pick up the trail.

A private vendor would maintain the database, financed by a fee paid by the businesses. The more onerous part of the proposal, however, is the detail the dealer would be required to provide: the customer’s height, weight, last four digits of his or her Social Security number, race, gender, hair and eye color, as well as identifying marks. The burdens placed on the businesses — as well as the customer who may innocently just need the cash from the transaction — should be considered.

John Spiker, president of the Hawaii Pawnbrokers Association, said in testimony before the Council that his organization opposes the measures, although it supports the intent. Among the criticisms are the privacy concerns of transmitting personal information, and the fact that the detailed reporting "treats customers as if they have committed a criminal offense." The Council will have to consider ways of addressing these concerns, particularly assuring the security of the vendor database.

However, the complaint that the businesses would have to have the computer equipment necessary to file the reports is less persuasive. In this era, such investments should be considered part of the cost of doing business. Spiker said that police recover only a small percentage from pawnbrokers, but enabling the information to be consolidated and easily accessed surely would increase that recovery rate.

Further, according to the Retail Merchants of Hawaii, among the victims of property crime are other businesses; the organization estimated loss to theft at $290 million.

If the revised bills are enacted, dealers would be barred from knowingly transacting with customers under 18 and would have to file paper reports at the end of the business day. But that hardly seems a reasonable or worthwhile improvement. It would create an added burden for the dealers, without yielding much of an assist to police, given the difficulty of using paper data files in investigations.

The more sensible course would be to hold off on any changes at the county level until state law is aligned with 21st century recordkeeping strategies.