BELLEVILLE — Paul Carr had been driving along Belleville’s North Front Street of an and a half ago when he became troubled by the proliferation of payday loan stores year.
“They appeared to be showing up quite quickly. ‘There’s a different one. There is a different one.’ We began observing I was thinking, this is unbelievable how quickly they’re coming into our community,” says Carr, a councillor in Belleville that they were like almost a block apart, and. He counts 10 cash advance stores in this populous town of approximately 50,000 individuals. “We have poverty that is high within our region … and so that it stressed me that every these high-interest loan providers had been turning up within our community. Exactly how many do we actually need?”
If he has got their way, the amount will remain where it really is.
Final thirty days, Belleville council adopted Carr’s resolution asking staff that is municipal consider restricting the spread of payday lenders by limiting their presence to simply three areas within the town.
Belleville joins a list that is growing of — including Hamilton, Kingston, Ottawa and Toronto — that are benefiting from Ontario’s Putting Consumers First Act, which arrived into impact in January and provides municipalities more control over in which the organizations can run. (There’s a clause that is grandfather permits current payday loan providers to remain put.)