By Roslyn Ryan, Editor
editor@powhatantoday.com

By 9 a.m. on what promised to be a sweltering Saturday morning last week, behind the Red Barn convenience store on Route 60, Melinda Taylor had already unpacked the bulk of the boxes she had filled helping her mother-in-law clean out her house.

Odds and ends collected over many years joined the odds and ends of at least a dozen other families, hauled to the grassy field and spread out on tables for yard sale hunters to peruse and pick though.

The sale has become a weekly tradition in the county, and last Saturday’s Red Barn gathering was one of a handful of other yard sales dotting the county from one end of Route 60 to the other.

Now however, citing concerns over parking and safety issues, the county is taking a second look at the weekly sales held up and down the county’s main thoroughfare.

The issue drew strong words from District 4 Supervisor Scott Daniel when it came up during a workshop last week.

“For me it’s a public safety issue,” said Daniel, pointing out the danger of cars parked alongside Route 60 and the possibility of a shopper getting hit exiting his or her vehicle. “Someone is going to get run over. [I don’t have a problem with yard sales] but they need to be done in a safe place.”

Powhatan, unlike many localities, does not have an ordinance specifically dealing with yard sales, but the county can ask that the site comply with current access management standards, which would mean putting in a turning lane. The county has already placed no parking signs along the northern edge of the property, but officials say that has led residents to simply park along the southern edge, on Route 13.

Red Barn owner Ajay Gandhi, who leases the property and allows yard sale goers to use his restroom on Saturdays, says he deosn’t see the weekly sale as a sfety issue.

“I’ve been here three years and I have never seen a problem,” he said, noting that parking along 60 is no longer an issue since the county posted the signs.

Supervisors, it seems, disagree. But while the group sales at Red Barn have raised concern, Supervisor Carson Tucker insists that the county is “certainly not in the business of regulating regular homeowners.” The supervisors plan to ask staff to consider a course of action for dealing with the safety issues involved, but Tucker said they will not be going after individual residents in their own yards who are trying to unload a few boxes from the attic.

Board members says safety is their primary concern but there is also another issue at play. People holding yard sales are currently not required to have the temporary business license that other roadside businesses, such as produce stands, are required to have.

For sellers like Pop Goode, it’s a question of fairness.

Goode and his friend Ray “Pop” Kite are both disabled, and say they typically use whatever money they make selling produce in the summer to fund a few fishing trips.

Last Friday found them set up in the parking lot of the Shell station just up the road from Red Barn, relaxing under a tent and greeting most of their customers by name. They have been trying to apply for the required permit, but have run into a road block: while the manager of the Shell has given them permission to sell there, they cannot get in touch with the absentee owner to get his required signature on their paper work.

The whole situation leaves a bad taste in his mouth, Kite says. “I’ve been out here 30 years and I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Tucker said the Board is aware of the concerns of vendors like Goode and Kite, and said that equity is definitely a concern.

“Why should some people be forced to go through the protocols while others don’t have to?” he asked.

While the board is considering asking the Planning Commission to take up the matter, County Attorney John Rick warned those in attendance at last week’s workshop that they may face a difficult task. One way of dealing with the issue may be to simply expand the definition of temporary businesses, but Rick warned that there may not be a way to make everyone involved happy. “This is not an area that is subject to a perfect solution,” he said.