Surrey is looking to crack down on the clustering of cheque-cashing centres and payday loan stores within city limits.
Currently, the majority of such businesses in the city are located in the town centres of City Centre, Newton and Guildford.
At Monday's council meeting, council directed staff to draft bylaw amendments that would require a 400-metre separation between such operations.
The approach is similar to what the city has done to regulate small-scale drug stores.
Coun. Barinder Rasode said these businesses have been an issue, especially when located in close proximity to social services.
"Any cluster of any business is not good for business, but it's also certain types of business, whether it be pawn shops, pharmacies that dispense methadone, or even some of the things we're dealing with in terms of the clustering of social services that serve vulnerable communities, they need to be absorbed into the community and not clustered in a certain area," Rasode said.
The proximity of some of those types of services close to the ministry of social services office in Newton have proved challenging, she added.
"Vulnerable people sometimes aren't even given an opportunity to make a decision on what they're going to do because there are people who are waiting to prey on them." Some of these businesses provide a good service to the community, while others take advantage of clients, Rasode said.
Any approved amendments would not apply to existing licensed business in operation, but to new businesses coming in. The expectation is that after restrictions are put in place, the clustering would gradually diminish.
Payday lending is a provincially regulated industry, while cheque cashing stores are not subject to provincial regulation. But both are subject to city's standard business licensing.
There are currently 37 separate storefront locations in the city. Of that total, 31 locations are licensed as "financial agents" and 26 as "cheque cashing centres." Overlap exists, a corporate report said, because some businesses have both licenses simultaneously. There are currently 20 licensed as both.
Staff will come back to council with drafted amendments for the required readings.
Meanwhile, The Cash Store, which has three locations in Surrey, is facing issues in Ontario.
The publicly-traded Cash Store Financial Services Inc. said Monday it has been granted protection from creditors by an Ontario court.
The Cash Store said it went after protection to address liquidity issues, caused in part by certain regulatory actions taken in Ontario that impacted its business there.
The Globe and Mail reported that in February, the Ontario Registrar of Payday Loans said it wanted to revoke the company's licences in the province.
The registrar cited conduct that included convictions in November 2013 that Cash Store and Instaloans were operating as unlicensed payday lenders.
It also alleged the company charged more than a legal maximum of $21 for every $100 payday loan.
The company said FTI Consulting Canada Inc. would serve as a court-appointed monitor of the company and report to the court during a restructuring.
