Ferndale Residents No Longer Need Permit to Hold Garage Sale

Ferndale residents wanting to hold a garage sale will no longer have to apply for a $5 garage sale permit. The Ferndale City Council voted to remove the permitting fee in an effort to try to find efficient ways of operating with fewer employees.

"We are looking at a reduction in staff and what we can do to make process more effective and more efficient," City Clerk Cherilynn Tallman told the council.

Tallman said that after discussions with Ferndale's Community and Economic Development Director Derek Delacourt, they decided to remove the permitting process for garage sales.

"The reasons that the (garage sale) permits were first put in place was to avoid the habitual garage sale that would become more of a business," Tallman said. "That type of misuse of garage sales is already in place in the (Ferndale) home business ordinance. … This permitting requirement is in many ways redundant to the zoning ordinance."

Removing the permit doesn't remove the rules of having a garage sale, however.

Sales are still limited to two per household per year. Tallman said garage sales may now last three consecutive days, rather than two. Residents who have more than two sales per household or have sales for more than three consecutive days are in violation of the ordinance.

Tallman said violations of the garage sale ordinance would be reported, as most ordinance violations are reported, through residents calling in.

"The way it works is the way other violations are reported. Someone complains, and then we go out and investigate," Tallman said.

Councilwoman Melanie Piana asked how many garage sale violations Ferndale gets annually. "We receive none," Tallman said.

Tallman added that this particular ordinance is "difficult thing to enforce and a difficult thing to track."

"It's a redundant thing for the residents to come in to pay $5 to just pay $5," Tallman said.