Mentor City Council passed an ordinance that places some limits on how often and how long residents can have garage sales.

Now people can only have up to three garage sales per year and each sale cannot last longer than four consecutive days.

Additionally, the ordinance requires people to:

• not hang or post signs advertising the garage sale on utility poles, traffic signs or in the public right of way.
• not hold the garage sale before 9 a.m. or after to 7 p.m.
• have "adequate traffic supervision" to prevent logjams at their garage sales.

However, one aspect of the initially proposed ordinance has been ditched.

Originally, residents would have been required to get a permit to have a garage sale.

The permit would enable the city to monitor just how many garage sales a resident has had per year. Additionally, the permit would have been free, Mentor City Manager Kenneth Filipiak said.

However, multiple City Council members raised concerns about the permit.

During a previous Council meeting, Ward 4 Councilman John Krueger asked why they were necessary.

"There's got to ge a better way to do this than to make every person who wants to have a garage sale get a permit," he said.

At-Large Councilwoman Janet Dowling added, "We're not charging for the permit but there is a cost to the taxpayer because someone has to handle the permits."

Consequently, the permit portion of the ordinance was excised.