Southwest Florida pawn shop sees rise in pawning

A pawn shop in SWFL is seeing an increase in pawning.

With rising interest rates and record-breaking inflation, people are making hard choices to make ends meet.

Thanks to the price of gas, food, and rent business at pawn shops are booming because some people are selling what they have just to pay their bills.

Jose Leyva works at Larry’s Estate Jewelry and Pawn on US-41.

“Sadly, with the economy and everything in the uptake, fuel prices, inflation, and everything. Yeah, we’ve seen a lot of new faces, we’ve seen a transition,” Leyva said.

He’s been in the business for more than 20 years and said the last six to eight months have been tough on his customers.

“It hurts, it hurts sometimes, because you hear some of the stories and, and it touches your heart,” Leyva said.

It used to be people coming in and looking to find a rare treasure, but now people arrive hoping to sell and too often take what they can get to make ends meet any way they can.

“You want to help everybody, but there are times that we just can’t help everybody. So, we help who we can,” Leyva said.

James Boyes is a disabled veteran who is going through all of his tools.

“I know a lot of people are bringing in merchandise they normally wouldn’t sell or pawn. In my case, I have no need for my power tools anymore,” Boyes said.

The shop’s popular items to sell are jewelry, guns, and electronics.

Torrence Robinson went to sell his Amazon tablet but he got a lot less than he hoped for.

“He didn’t give me like 100 bucks. But he gave me enough for me to go do what I got to do,” Robinson said.

A lot of people are also asking pawn shops for collateral loans.

Larry’s pawnshop said they’re helping as much as they can but they can’t give everyone what they want because at the end of the day, they’re in business to make money.