BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Senator Ricardo Lara, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular Session
AB 1751 (Low) - Secondhand goods
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|Version: June 20, 2016 |Policy Vote: B., P. & E.D. 9 - |
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|Urgency: Yes |Mandate: No |
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|Hearing Date: August 1, 2016 |Consultant: Brendan McCarthy |
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This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.
Bill
Summary: AB 1751 would make several changes to the operation of
the California Automated Pawn and Secondhand Dealer System
(CAPSS) operated by the Department of Justice.
Fiscal
Impact:
Unknown potential information technology costs, to make
changes to CAPSS to reflect the changes required in the bill
(Secondhand Dealer and Pawnbroker Fund). The bill would
require the Department of Justice to accept a plain text
description of a reported item. Currently, the Department is
requiring users of CAPSS to use specified classifications,
rather than plain text descriptions. The Department may be
required to make system changes to CAPSS to allow the system
to accept plain text descriptions in addition to specified
classifications or to develop the ability to accept field
descriptors that would accurately reflect plain text
descriptions used in the secondhand industry.
AB 1751 (Low) Page 1 of
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Potential ongoing staff costs in the hundreds of thousands per
year for the Department of Justice to classify items reported
to CAPSS based on the plain text descriptions submitted by
users (Secondhand Dealer and Pawnbroker Fund). The sponsors of
the bill indicate that using the required classifications
imposes a burden on CAPSS users and that most users would
prefer to continue the historic practice of using plain text
descriptions. If a significant number of users revert to using
plain text descriptions and the Department of Justice wishes
to continue classifying reported items, the Department could
incur substantial staff costs to do so.
Background: Under current law, secondhand dealers and pawnbrokers are
licensed by local law enforcement agencies. Secondhand dealers
and pawnbrokers are required to collect specified information
about any item they purchase or take as collateral for a loan.
Secondhand dealers and pawnbrokers are also required to collect
information about the individual selling or pawning an item. The
purpose of this requirement is to allow local law enforcement to
search for stolen items. Historically, secondhand dealers and
pawnbrokers used paper forms developed by the Department of
Justice to record the required information and those forms were
submitted to local law enforcement agencies.
More recently, current law requires secondhand dealers and
pawnbrokers to use the California Automated Pawn and Secondhand
Dealer System (CAPSS) developed by the Department of Justice.
CAPPS allows for electronic reporting of information directly to
the Department of Justice. The Department currently requires
CAPSS users to characterize items submitted based on prescribed
classifications, rather than using plain text descriptions.
Secondhand dealers and pawnbrokers have indicated that using the
prescribed classifications is time consuming, in part because
they use terminology not commonly used in the secondhand dealers
industry.
Current law requires secondhand dealers and pawnbrokers to
include specified identifying information on the individual
selling or pawning the item. Secondhand dealers and pawnbrokers
have indicated that the Department is requiring them to include
a photo or the seller and/or license plate information in the
CAPSS report, even though this information is not specifically
AB 1751 (Low) Page 2 of
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required in statute.
Proposed Law:
AB 1751 would make several changes to the operation of the
California Automated Pawn and Secondhand Dealer System (CAPSS)
by the Department of Justice.
Specific provisions of the bill would:
State legislative intent in enacting the bill, including
legislative intent that only properly trained law enforcement
personnel of the Department of Justice or local law
enforcement should classify and encode information on property
reported by pawnbrokers and secondhand dealers;
Limit the information that must be reported to CAPSS to the
information specifically required in statute;
Authorize the description of items reported to CAPSS to be
provided in a plain text description;
Authorize a CAPSS user to use an article field descriptor
designated by the Department if the descriptor would
accurately populate the description field with a plain text
description generally accepted in the secondhand industry;
Provide that a report to CAPSS shall be deemed to have been
accepted if the user makes a good faith effort to supply all
the required information;
Require a secondhand dealer to report business conducted at a
gun show to CAPSS and require the Department to report
information on those transactions to local law enforcement,
upon request;
Delete the requirement that the Department develop descriptive
categories of property for reporting to CAPPS;
Require the Department to accept plain language descriptions
commonly used in the secondhand industry;
Prohibit the Department of Justice or local law enforcement
from requiring any additional information on property or
sellers beyond what is specifically required in law;
Require any future changes to the CAPSS reporting requirements
to be adopted as regulations under the Administrative
Procedure Act;
Require the Department of Justice to consult with the
Department of Technology on changes to CAPSS required by the
bill;
Make other technical and clarifying changes.
AB 1751 (Low) Page 3 of
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This bill is an urgency measure.
Staff
Comments: Prior versions of this bill would have specifically
required the Department of Justice to encode the plain text
property descriptions received from secondhand dealers and
pawnbrokers for use in law enforcement databases. That provision
has been deleted from the bill. However, the bill still includes
legislative intent language that only properly trained law
enforcement personnel of the Department of Justice or local law
enforcement agencies encode information provided in a plain text
format to CAPSS.
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