Having a yard sale used to be simple. Set up some card tables, price any old
clothes, toys or kitchen appliances, put signs around the neighborhood, and
open for business.
Today, South Florida homeowners need to fill out applications, pay for permits
and read regulations before they get started. And that's assuming the local
condominium or homeowner association allows the sales to begin with.
As collecting becomes more popular and buying cheap has entered the mainstream,
more people have tried to emulate online flea markets like eBay by selling unused
clothes, electronics and household items in their front yards.
RESTRICTIONS
To forestall such makeshift retailing, cities have begun to crack down by
requiring permits and limiting the number of sales. Most cities also prohibit
residents from putting any signs on public property to keep streets uncluttered
for drivers.
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Coral Gables resident Tony Martinez had to pay $25 for a garage sale permit this
summer. Martinez and his wife, Angie Stephen, also had to ask nearby homeowners
to put signs in their yards to guide potential shoppers through the
neighborhood's winding streets. A couple of years ago, a city inspector removed
signs the couple had posted along the street.
''They're a little bit over the top,'' Martinez said of city workers, while
visitors shopped around him.
As Terry Kovel, co-author of Kovels' Antiques & Collectibles Price
List, explains, these regulations exist because front-yard entrepreneurs are
hoping to capitalize on the surging popularity of garage sale shopping.
When yard sales first took off in the 1950s, ''no one with money went to a
garage sale,'' Kovel said.
Now, shopping sites like eBay have made it common to buy pre-owned merchandise.
NO STIGMAS
''There's no stigma anymore to having something that's used,'' Kovel said. ``Now
you can meet anyone in line at one of these sales.''
The proliferation of big-box retail stores like Target and Wal-Mart has spurred
a renewed appreciation for unique home decorating, Kovel said.
''You get some really original stuff,'' said garage sale veteran Ana Marques,
shopping at Martinez's and Stephen's yard sale. ``I have really beautiful stuff
from this woman who went to Thailand.''
But with garage sales more popular than ever, neighborhood streets would become
giant flea markets if left unregulated, Miami Beach spokeswoman Nannette
Rodriguez said.
''There was this one house that had a garage sale every weekend,'' she said.
``It was basically like a store in the front yard.''
Miami Beach requires a $20 permit, proof of residency and limits sales to
garages, carports and one quarter of the front yard.
Even smaller municipalities like North Miami and Cooper City have almost a full
page of regulations governing the number and size of signs, sale times and
where items may be displayed.
As North Lauderdale Mayor Jack Brady explains, regulations let cities monitor
local sales each weekend.
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''This way we can run a check and find out if they are running a business or if
it's a true garage sale,'' he said.
Some cities do provide alternatives. Cooper City hosts multi-family garage sales
twice a year, providing more than 40 spots at the Cooper City Community Center.
Spaces for the fall sale on Oct. 7 sold out in less than a day, said Carol
Boyle, a Cooper City recreation department employee.
''They'd like us to do it four times a year,'' Boyle said. ``But we have so many
other events that it's hard to squeeze it in the calendar.''
Without the sale, Scott Gilliland would have needed another way to sell his
family's old guest room furniture. Gilliland's neighborhood, Embassy Lakes,
doesn't allow garage sales.
To make it to the Cooper City sale, Gilliland and his mother-in-law, Colleen
Taber, spent almost four hours loading and unloading a van borrowed from work.
They then woke up at 5 a.m. to drive to the sale.
''The hard part was unloading in the dark with people coming by with flashlights
trying to buy things,'' Taber said.
Sometimes garage sale alternatives like the Cooper City sale lead to new
converts, like Marina Ochoa. Ochoa has been coming to the sale with her mother
since moving to the city about eight years ago.
''I'm not a garage sale junkie, but I like it,'' she said. ``I wish they'd do it
more often.''
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