Folsom City Council reverses these limitations on garage sales

One city council’s repeal is a constituent’s treasure.

Folsom City Council reversed a section of their municipal code Tuesday night that previously limited garage sales to two per year, each with a maximum of three consecutive days, according to community development director Pam Johns via email.

The section was originally enacted in 1997 for an unknown purpose, according to Johns.

“That information might be challenging to track down because it assumes we have a staff report explaining the reasons when the ordinance was established in 1997,” Johns wrote.

The restrictions were suspended by a COVID-19 emergency order on May 1, 2020, and ended Sept. 13 upon the order’s termination, according to the city.

“Folsom City Council discussed whether it’s a problem we still need to solve as part of the rescission of the emergency order and determined that it’s not,” Johns said. “As such, they directed staff to bring back the code change to remove the limitation permanently.”

Johns said that during the emergency order, there was no limitation on the frequency of garage sales in Folsom.

The city has received no complaint from residents about the numbers and frequency of garage sales in over two years since the suspension, according to the city agenda.

Folsom’s code enforcement program is complaint based, according to Johns, and she said the city does not and will not monitor or track garage sales unless it receives a complaint, then investigates it and determines [if it’s] a violation of the city’s code.

In a city council meeting on Sept. 27, Johns said there was one public comment regarding the repeal of the restrictions that said the original municipal code section is reasonable to protect against potential nuisances.

Prior to May 1, 2020, the city would rarely receive a complaint on garage sales, according to Pete Piccardo, code enforcement supervisor for the city of Folsom.

Piccardo said the city also rarely gets complaints about garage sales being too long or too frequent and that garage sale complaints are generally a very small percentage of the city’s case load, averaging about 3% or less.

The repeal will be effective 30 days after its passage and adoption provided it is published within 20 days after its adoption in a newspaper of general circulation in the city, according to the agenda.