How do you define junk?

Revelations about how the town classifies junk dealers have thrust dozens of local businesses into legal limbo. Selectmen voted Tuesday to suggest a Town Meeting item asking to expand the number of available junk licenses in town be put to further study.

If the item is passed as written, Selectmen said it could have far worse consequences than intended, including the shuttering of otherwise upstanding businesses.

"If you're in the business of selling secondhand items, you need a junk license," said Town Counsel Richard Bowen.

As Selectman Alan Slavin noted at Tuesday's meeting, that means everyone from pop up junk shops on Cranberry Highway to the Salvation Army, consignment shops, church thrift stores and even retail stores such as Gamestop, which gains a very small portion of its sales from selling used video games. There are currently only five junk dealers licenses available to businesses in town and all of them are in use.

The proposal going before Town Meeting seeks to raise the number of licenses from five to 25. The bylaw change was put on the Town Meeting agenda right before the March 17 deadline after Selectman Steve Holmes discovered a number of junk dealers operating along Cranberry Highway without a junk dealer license.

Slavin, however, said there are upwards of 60 businesses that would be affected by this and doesn't want to be forced into shutting down respectable businesses who aren't included in the 25 that get licenses under the rewritten bylaw.

Selectmen agreed that something needs to be done, but that the bylaw change needs to be refined so it won't delegitimize dozens of businesses that didn't even realize thy were involved in this matter.

The board voted to suggest the article be put to further study and that specifically, a committee be formed to explore the issue and report back with an item at this year's Fall Town Meeting.

"I think there has been a lot of progress on this, but I want to do it right," Slavin said.

Holmes, who was the only dissenting vote in motion for further study, was still concerned that it could be construed that by not acting, Selectmen would be condoning businesses operating illegally without a license. He asked Bowen for a comment on the matter.

“The fact that it is being reviewed over the next couple weeks or several months does not mean it gives an immunity defense to anybody who is operating a business in violation of a bylaw,” Bowen said.

"We're not trying to say it's ok to run an illegal business. We're trying to legitimatize appropriate businesses that already exist and never imagined they would be caught up under this bylaw because the word "junk" was grotesquely misleading to them," said Selectman Peter Teitelbaum.

He used the Consignment Shop on Main Street as an example of a business that would never be considered junk, but does indeed sell secondhand items and falls under the junk dealer bylaw.

"In no way or fashion am I ever interested in shutting them down just to show blind obedience to a stupid law," he said.