LB COUNCIL TO CONSIDER 1-YEAR MORATORIUM ON CONTROVERSIAL LOANS
By Greater Long Beach
Three types of high-interest loans would temporarily be prohibited in Long Beach under a proposal scheduled to be considered by the Long Beach City Council on Oct. 2. The proposed one-year moratorium on Payday Lending, Car Title Loan Lending and Short-Term Consumer Finance Lending is intended to provide City staff and the Planning Commission with time to complete studies of these loans and make recommendations about them to the City Council.
Councilmember Gerrie Schipske has agendized the proposal for the Oct. 2 meeting of the City Council, joined by colleagues Robert Garcia Al Austin and Steven Neal.
If approved, the proposal would take the form of an interim zoning ordinance that would temporarily prohibit businesses from using land to offer Payday Lending, Car Title Loan Lending and Short-Term Consumer Finance Lending.
The item comes one week after the Council voted 6-2—with Garcia and Councilmember Patrick O’Donnell dissenting—to delay action on an appeal by two Long Beach residents opposing an consumer finance lender’s application to operate in the Traffic Circle area.
That item coincides with a separate application by a title loan lender seeking to operate at the intersection of Pacific Coast Highway and Pacific Avenue, where it is opposed by several longtime neighborhood activists, who describe its practices as “predatory.”
The Oct. 2 agendizing memo by Councilwoman Schipske and her co-agendizing colleagues states:
