Cracking down on perpetual yard sales
Walker County plans to crack down on yard salers and flea marketers who leave their merchandise outside and overnight for more than four days at a time.
The county is changing its zoning law to require that merchandise must be stored inside approved — enclosed and secure — structures from dusk until dawn.
However, this change does not include four-day-or-less annual yard sale events.
Commissioner Shannon Whitfield said, on April 20, that the Planning and Zoning Board submitted a recommendation to have the verbiage changed, so the ordinance would require the outdoor merchandise to be enclosed in secured structures.
The matter was discussed during the commissioner’s meeting on May 25 and determined to be a matter of codes enforcement.
“So, what this is doing is addressing that if someone has a full-time, outdoor flea market, that they will have to bring those items in at dusk and bring them back out at daylight, so they can have these items secured,” Whitfield said.
Whitfield said this is aimed at flea markets that operate on a full time basis.
One concerned citizen brought up the flea market near Rusty’s Meat Market
in Rossville on LaFayette Road and asked if this would be a code enforcement requirement, to which Whitfield said, yes.
“They would be given a citation warning first and then—most likely on the second offense—then they would be fined,” Whitfield said.
Codes enforcement wants to do away with year long yard sales on properties where the merchandise is left in the front yards of residential neighborhoods where the items are left out year round.
The concerned citizen said there is a distinct difference in a private, residential yard sale and a “full blown” flea market that is on a main thoroughfare.
Whitfield said this still allows someone having a long weekend yard sale to leave their items out temporarily, but said there are situations throughout the county where people leave their merchandise out 365days per year and the county has received numerous complaints over the issue.
The matter has to have a third hearing over the issue and public input and discussion will be allowed at the next commissioner’s meeting.