CBS 19 - The Eye of East Texas News - Senate To Hurt Pawn Shop Business

Senate To Hurt Pawn Shop Business

By ShaVonne Herndon

"And you just want to get a loan on it," said the Insta Cash clerk.

With her gas tank on "e" Bonnie Allen just needs a few bucks to make it home, so she's pawning her microwave.

"You don't want no big high dollar loan that's just going to take you forever to pay out, but you can go to the pawn shop and get $10-$15 loan and pay it out within 30 days and that's fine," said Allen. 

The proposed bill would put a 36% cap on the loan rather than the current 240%. Insta Cash finance manager Kim Prine has done the math.

"Unfortunately we wouldn't be able to stay in business with that," said Prine.

Prine adds the bill doesn't consider the customers, especially during these hard economic times they should be put first.

"There's nowhere else in anywhere that a consumer can come and get a small short term loan for that amount of money," said Prine.

Insta Cash Pawn Shop is even asking their customers to sign a petition so they can hopefully stay in business.

"It's looking pretty good we have a lot of customers that are signing it because they are concerned everyone is concerned about it," added Prine.

Bonnie will redeem her microwave one day, but it's the cash she needs now and for emergency situations later to come.

"If they take that away from us then what are we going to have nothing because there's nowhere else to go," said Allen.