This past February, the Carson city Planning Commission voted unanimously to require conditional-use permits for all payday loan companies. For the last several months the commission has been thinking about implementing other regulations on local payday lending businesses.
The payday lending industry has greatly opposed this measure and, this last Tuesday, were put slightly at ease. The City Council voted 5-0 (again, unanimously) to reject that proposal. Instead of requiring a conditional-use permit from every payday loan company, they will only require permits from new businesses. The existing companies will be grandfathered in.
The Community Financial Services Association of America agreed and praised the council for their decision. A member of that association, Sergio Carillo, stated, “They realized the city must be a business-friendly city. To change the laws halfway through is just unfair to those businesses.”
There are currently 11 payday lenders in Carson. Two of the 11 are currently not legally practicing and operating. One of them does not have a state license,while the other does not have a business license because of fire code issues. Although these companies are obviously operating when they should not be, Carillo pointed out that the city should use the existing regulations to “go after” non compliant businesses instead of creating new ones for the entire payday loan industry.
One member of the council, Lula Davis-Holmes, agreed with this sentiment by adding, “Why punish nine businesses for the actions of two that we need to regulate?” The council was able to appropriately consider the situation and realize that a few individual businesses, who just happened to be payday loan companies, were operating illegally. But, their poor actions should not be used as the rope to hang the entire payday loan industry in the city.
