A Prince George gaming business owner is asking city council to amend a bylaw that has him hold cards for 30 days before a sale.
Pat Howard of Game Quest on Cowart Road was at Prince George city council Monday night for the first and second reading of an amendment to a second-hand dealers and pawnbrokers bylaw.
He says the rule was implemented many years ago in a "blanket bylaw" to prevent circulation and sale of material stolen in home break-ins.
"The bylaw for all second-hand cards in Prince George...it makes no sense because there are no serial numbers on the cards. There's really no way to identify it as stolen."
Other than the occasional extremely rare card worth hundreds of dollars, most of the cards are worth anywhere from $0.10 to $20.
Howard says the bylaw also prevents businesses like his from following market trends. His business trades in popular card games like Magic the Gathering, Pokemon, Yu Gi'Oh, Dragonball Z, and Ultra. The games are some of the largest in the world among collectors.
"The prices fluctuate due to supply and demand. Magic The Gathering, for example, has daily high profile tournaments around the world. A card that was previously not very valuable might be used in a tournament by someone who wins, word gets out, and all of a sudden demand for that card shoots through the roof across the country," Howard tells PrinceGeorgeMatters.
He adds that because the games themselves are so specialized, an everyday thief would not know which cards were of value and which weren't, making them relatively complicated to resell to pawn shops, which also may not know the distinctions.
He says the communities around the games are also very tight-knit, and as such a thief would have a hard time selling sets of cards.
"People have constructed very specific decks, so if they were stolen by anyone (in the community), word would spread like wildfire."
The bylaw amendment would exclude trading cards from the definition of second-hand property, which would exempt cards from the 30-day hold.
Howard says the third and final reading of the amendment will take place in the new year. He wants members of the gaming community to show up and show their support.
"As far as we can tell, (this bylaw) exists only in Prince George and maybe a couple of places in Quebec," he says.
— Jordan Tucker is a freelancer writer for PrinceGeorgeMatters
