Council to consider ordinance to regulate businesses that buy scrap gold
By JIM BROOKS
Nelson County Gazette
CHIEF RICK MCCUBBIN
Thursday, Jan. 9, 2014, 2 a.m. — Businesses that buy scrap gold in the City of Bardstown are likely to face some additional regulations aimed at helping police identify items that have been stolen.
Bardstown Police Chief Rick McCubbin said that a draft of an ordinance the Bardstown City Council reviewed Tuesday night at its working session is modeled on a similar ordinance in place in Elizabethtown. That ordinance requires businesses that buy precious metals and other regulated items to register the transactions with a website called Leads Online.
Leads Online is an Internet database that is free for businesses to use to record their transactions as is often required of pawn shops, scrap dealers and other businesses. The website makes recording transactions easier for the businesses and it helps police solve crimes.
Pawn shops and scrap metal dealers are already required to record transactions; the proposed ordinance is aimed at traveling businesses that visit town for a weekend to buy scrap gold, silver and other precious metals before heading somewhere else. There’s no regulation of these traveling gold buyers, and for owners of items stolen and sold to these scrap dealers there is no way to track the items that were purchase.
McCubbin stressed the ordinance isn’t designed to burden existing businesses, but to close a loophole that fails to require itinerant gold buyers. “It puts everyone on a level playing field,” he said.
The ordinance will be discussed at a future meeting of the Bardstown City Council.
FIRE TRAINING CENTER DISCUSSED. Bardstown Fire Chief Marlin Howard reported on the plans for the fire training center on city-owned property by the city sewer treatment plant at the end of Sutherland Road.
CHIEF MARLIN HOWARD
Nelson Fiscal Court has offered to provide labor and equipment necessary to create a parking lot approximately 100 by 300 feet. The fire department would need to provide the materials — in this case, gravel. Howard said the cost of gravel to cover the lot at a depth of 10 inches would be under $30,000.
According to Howard, the offer to do the work is contingent on a fairly quick decision; once warmer weather arrives, the county road department won’t be available to do the project.
Bardstown Mayor Bill Sheckles asked Howard to come up with the actual cost of the needed materials.
Howard told the council that an unnamed donor may be able to donate an intermodal shipping container to the department which can service as a live burn training structure. At present the property needs a parking lot that can accommodate the heavy firefighting equipment.
Several council members asked if the training facility would create revenue in the form of rental fees for the training of visiting fire departments. Howard told the council the economic benefit from hosting training at the site would be from money the visiting firefighters spend during their visit here.
After more questions about charges other fire training sites may pose, Howard told the council he would investigate.
COMING UP. The Bardstown City Council meets next 7 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2014.
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