Gaming cards exempted from holding period

City council voted unanimously in favour Monday night of exempting previously-owned trading and collectible cards from the 30-day holding period under the city’s secondhand dealers and pawnbrokers bylaw.

Kelsy Polnik of Game Quest has been pushing for the exemption, similar to one made in 2014 for video games.

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But Prince George RCMP had raised a concern that waiving the requirement may turn the cards into a target for thieves looking for quick cash. For most secondhand items, stores are required to hold them for 30 days and record their serial numbers or other identifiers into a database, so police can more easily track down stolen property and return it to its rightful owners.

During a public hearing on the matter, advocates contended the concern is overblown and stressed the cards they were talking about lack any special marking, like those found on hockey and baseball trading cards.

Instead, they referred to cards used in various forms of gaming, notably Magic and Pokemon cards.

“These cards are indistinguishable,” Reidar Paulson told council. “There’s no way to tell one card from the other that isn’t the exact same. There are no serial numbers, there are no barcodes, there are no distinguishing features.”

Because even a small collection can be worth in the thousands, recording each card into a database for police reference has become more trouble than it’s been worth, council was told, particularly since those records have never been accessed.

It has been enough for Game Quest to opt out of taking in secondhand cards for resale while Wonderland Gaming accepts only a select few, forcing enthusiasts to resort to the internet to find the cards they want.

“The proposed change would bring customers back into the stores, it would grow the community the way the video community grew and strengthened after those sales were exempted in 2014,” said Julia Howard of Game Quest.

“It would also centralize the trades to only a few local store locations, so in the rare occasion of thefts of collections, we would work together to keep a cooperative watch.”

At the end of the hearing, RCMP Insp. Shaun Wright confirmed that there have not been many calls to police for card theft be they the traditional trading cards or gaming cards, and noted that while the former can be traced, the latter cannot.

It has been enough for Game Quest to opt out of taking in secondhand cards for resale while Wonderland Gaming accepts only a select few...