Fayetteville planners will give the matter some more thought before deciding whether to regulate garage sales.

“On the one hand, I don't want undue regulation. On the other hand, some of those having garage sales consistently are not having garage sales... they are operating [businesses],” said Bill Talley, chairman of the city Planning Commission, during a discussion on the topic last week.

City planner Todd Miller said a resident recently complained about a neighbor having two to three garage sales a month, but the city has no regulations that limit the number of sales a resident can have.

“Most [cities] limit them to two or three garage sales a year,” he told the Planning Commission.

Commission member Kevin Bittinger liked the idea of imposing a limit, saying he didn't believe it would work undue hardship on code enforcers. “We're going to know who the chief offenders are,” he said. “We're going to know where to look.”

But commission member Myron Coxe disagreed. “I would say this is government intrusion we don't need,” he said. Most neighborhoods can deal with nuisance garage sales through their homeowners' associations, he said.

Segis Lipscomb suggested rewriting the definition of retail sales so that if a resident has too many yard sales, the resident would fall under that definition and have to meet zoning restrictions for a business.

The group adjourned without coming to any conclusions.

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