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City of Jacksonville passes ordinance restricting garage sales

One Jacksonville resident said with the price of almost everything going up, neighbors have turned to selling their belongings just to put food on the table.

JACKSONVILLE, Texas — The city of Jacksonville has put in a garage sale ordinance restricting when residents can have garage sales.

One Jacksonville resident said with the price of almost everything going up, neighbors have turned to selling their belongings just to put food on the table. Now the city is restricting when residents can have garage sales. 

"Obviously, it's in everyone's best interest to have, you know, areas for commerce and areas to reside in," said James Hubbard, city manager of Jacksonville. 

The city did have a prior ordinance in place, but this one went into effect earlier this month making a distinct separation between business and residential areas.

"When you have perpetual garage sales, or garage sales that are basically occurring every single weekend, or potentially seven days a week, you're tearing at the fabric of neighborhoods, because you're bringing in transient vehicles, increased traffic and eyesores," Hubbard said. 

As for the signs, those have restrictions too.

"Signs have to be up only on the day of the sale and have to come down as soon as the sale ends. And the signs are not allowed to be in public right away, that's very common as well," Hubbard said. 

With many people shopping online now, Hubbard said that those shopping or selling on Facebook marketplace or Craigslist won’t be affected.

"We would actually encourage that. I mean, I think that's how you get people really to come more so than even signs these days," Hubbard said.

Since the ordinance is still fairly new, no fines have been specified for a violation. Other East Texas cities, like Tyler, have similar ordinances limiting residents the amount of garage sales they can have over a period of time.

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