THE RECORD-KEEPING AND INSPECTION REQUIREMENTS FOR NYC PAWNBROKERS DO NOT VIOLATE THE UNREASONABLE SEARCH AND SEIZURE PROHIBITION IN THE NYS CONSTITUTION.
The First Department, in a full-fledged opinion by Justice Saxe, determined that the various record-keeping and inspection statutes and regulations which apply to New York City pawnbrokers did not violate the unreasonable search and seizure prohibition in Article I, section 12 of the New York State Constitution. Therefore, the preliminary injunction prohibiting enforcement of the statutes, regulations and procedures should not have been granted:
Here, the statutory and regulatory framework at issue consists of two distinct components: not merely inspection requirements involving targeted, on-premises administrative inspections by government officials, but also substantial reporting requirements, involving submission of transactional information to the government.
To the extent the statutory and regulatory framework involves transactional reporting requirements, it does not involve either physical inspections or administrative searches of a business or its records; instead, it merely requires the submission of information in which the businesses have little, if any, expectation of privacy. * * *
Even if we focus on those provisions that authorize inspections, and characterize them as administrative searches, plaintiffs failed to demonstrate a likelihood that they will prevail. The Court of Appeals … acknowledged the continued viability of an “administrative search” exception to the constitutional requirements of probable cause and warrants. While that exception “cannot be invoked where … the [administrative] search is undertaken solely to uncover evidence of criminality’ and the underlying regulatory scheme is in reality, designed simply to give the police an expedient means of enforcing penal sanctions'” … , a regulatory administrative search scheme can pass muster under New York’s Constitution where it is “pervasive and include[s] detailed standards in such matters as, for example, the operation of the business and the condition of the premises” … . Collateral Loanbrokers Assn. of N.Y., Inc. v City of New York, 2017 NY Slip Op 00953, 1st Dept 2-7-17
MUNICIPAL LAW (NYC) (THE RECORD-KEEPING AND INSPECTION REQUIREMENTS FOR PAWNBROKERS DO NOT VIOLATE THE UNREASONABLE SEARCH AND SEIZURE PROHIBITION IN THE NYS CONSTITUTION)/CONSITUTIONAL LAW (NYS) (PAWNBROKERS, NYC, THE RECORD-KEEPING AND INSPECTION REQUIREMENTS FOR PAWNBROKERS DO NOT VIOLATE THE UNREASONABLE SEARCH AND SEIZURE PROHIBITION IN THE NYS CONSTITUTION)/PAWNBROKERS (NYC) (THE RECORD-KEEPING AND INSPECTION REQUIREMENTS FOR PAWNBROKERS DO NOT VIOLATE THE UNREASONABLE SEARCH AND SEIZURE PROHIBITION IN THE NYS CONSTITUTION)/ADMINISTRATIVE SEARCHES (NYC) (PAWNBROKERS, THE RECORD-KEEPING AND INSPECTION REQUIREMENTS FOR PAWNBROKERS DO NOT VIOLATE THE UNREASONABLE SEARCH AND SEIZURE PROHIBITION IN THE NYS CONSTITUTION)/SEARCH AND SEIZURE (PAWNBROKERS, NYC, THE RECORD-KEEPING AND INSPECTION REQUIREMENTS FOR PAWNBROKERS DO NOT VIOLATE THE UNREASONABLE SEARCH AND SEIZURE PROHIBITION IN THE NYS CONSTITUTION)