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Pawn shops offer a way for people to get fast cash for loaned items, or for them to shop for items at a discount.When the pandemic hit, pawn shops were deemed essential and stayed open, but the reasons people came in were different than what was expected.“This is how we test diamonds, it’s a diamond tester” Michael Mack, owner of Max Pawn, said while explaining how pawn shops figure out the worth of a ring. “And then we weigh.”This is part of the process at a pawn shop, customers bring an item in and an employee assesses it. They make an offer based on value. If you say yes, you walk out the door with cash. You either keep the money and the shop eventually puts your stuff up for sale, or you bring the money back and reclaim your items.Like all industries, COVID-19 has caused some change.“Business is difficult,” Mack said. “All of these businesses are not able to do business the way they used to, and pawn shops are no different.”However, pawn shops were deemed essential. “We’re a financial institution. We remained open this entire time,” said Andy Zimmerman, CFO at Gold & Silver Pawn Shop.There to provide loans for people in need of fast cash, sometimes to those who don’t have access to a bank.“Unbanked and underbanked, they typically refer to a consumer that finds your typical bank branch not really meet their needs,” said Jonathan Polter, CEO of the app PawnGuru. The app connects customers with pawn shops, without having to go into a store first.“Traditional banks make money off a variety of transactions and because of the financial situation of the unbanked and underbanked consumer, they’re typically not credit-worthy of many of those other products,” Polter said. This was important during the last recession.“When 2008 hit, pawn shops became more prevalent because banks were giving less money to everyone. Before, pawn shops catered to a lower class middle class,” Mack explained. “We had people come in and get a loan on a Ferrari to pay their private school bill.”That’s what shop owners said they expected when the economy took a hit in March.“The anticipation was that the loan balances or the pawns would increase but, in fact, it’s worked the other way, with the federal stimulus, it seems that a lot of the customers typical of a pawn shop have in essence received a raise,” Zimmerman said. Zimmerman works at the Gold & Silver Pawn Shop in Las Vegas, a popular shop and tourist destination.“The outflow of goods versus the inflow of goods has been a surprise to everyone in the industry,” he said.Pawn shops can’t even keep certain items in stock, such as electronics, guns, and jewelry.“We were just selling through thousands of ounces of silver,” Zimmerman said. “The stimulus really had an impact on people’s behavior.”“Also bicycles, everyone wanted to ride a bicycle, so bikes are gone,” Mack said. This left many shops with low inventory, and lots of cash.“Right now, I don’t know that the industry has ever seen this before,” Polter explained. “Their industry is dried up and at the same time, they haven’t really had the time to replenish it.”“Pawn shops are not built to sit on cash,” Polter said. “They’re built to put cash into consumers pockets and that’s how they make money.”Mack’s shop is working with customers like many pawn shops are, offering curbside pickup or lowering loan interest rates for a while. “The asset is the customer,” he said.But without more loans coming in and a low inventory of items, pawn shop owners said there could be trouble further down the line.“We've been affected and if you drive to any other pawn shops there's nothing in their stores at all. So for that to come back we need a normal economy to really get loans and sell things,” Mack said. 3747

POINT ROBERTS, Wash. -- In Point Roberts, Washington, the beauty of nature isn’t hard to find.“The environment is unsurpassed,” said Brian Calder, director of the Point Roberts Chamber of Commerce. “I mean, it's a beautiful spot.”It’s a town of about 1,000 people, where two nations meet: the U.S. and Canada.Lately, though, people there feel more like they’re caught in the middle.“We're surrounded by foreign territory, not part of North America, USA,” Calder said.Point Roberts is what’s known as an “exclave.” When a 19th century treaty established the 49th parallel as part of the U.S. border with Canada, Point Roberts ended up on the American side, but cut off from the rest of the U.S. because it sits at the end of a peninsula, with Canada to the north of it.Normally, travelling back and forth across the border isn’t an issue.However, because of the coronavirus, the border is closed and the town – which relies on tourism – is at a standstill.“Our traffic comes from Canada, lower mainland primarily, and that's what drives our economy. Period,” Calder said. “We have nothing internally.”Whitney McElroy owns Breakwaters Bar & Grill, where hundreds of people usually gather for music and food. That didn’t happen this year, though. The current situation forced him to furlough all but two employees.“We're down between 85 and 90%,” McElroy said of the grill. “By opening the border, it would considerably help this community. It would bring it back to life again, as it's pretty much dead now.”One of the few things keeping the town alive is the lone supermarket.“On a normal summer week, we do we see about 8,000 customers,” said Ali Hayton, who owns the Point Roberts Marketplace.This year, business at the supermarket is down 80%. Hayton applied for the federal Paycheck Protection Program, which helped financially, but only through July.“I don't want a handout because those go away,” Hayton said. “I want to work for a living and the only way I can do that is if I have people able to come down here.”Weekly testing shows that, so far, there have been no recorded cases of coronavirus in Point Roberts.Because of its unusual location, surrounded by water on three sides and Canada to the north, the border closure isn’t just affecting businesses in Point Roberts. It’s also affecting families, in some cases, by separating them.“People can't sustain - financially and emotionally and spiritually - this kind of stress,” said Point Roberts resident Rena Andreoli.Andreoli and her family are dual citizens of the U.S. and Canada, who live in Point Roberts. Since the lone school in town only goes up to 3rd grade, her children, like some others there, attend nearby schools in Canada. School, though, is considered a non-essential border crossing. So, in order to continue going to her current high school in Canada, her oldest daughter moved in with friends of the family.“By doing that to a family, we're really, we're just killing these kids,” Andreoli said. “So, we need to smarten up as a country, both countries, and look past the politics and look past all that.”Residents believe there could be a simple solution.“If we can have an exemption federally from both sides of the fence, then I think it would definitely ease things and make things a lot more palatable for people,” said Nic Lehoux, who lives in Point Roberts.Recently, a twice weekly passenger ferry service and small plane service began for residents in Point Roberts. Before then, they had no other way to reach the U.S., without driving through the Canadian border and over into Washington state.Still, the border remains closed for the foreseeable future, as the closure has been renewed every 30 days for the past six months. 3724

Pizza Hut will replace Papa John's as the official pizza of the NFL.The announcement comes a day after Papa John's said it would end its sponsorship of the league. Papa John's, which last fall blamed the NFL's response to player protests for slumping sales, will focus on its partnerships with individual teams.The league's deal with Pizza Hut is for four years, and is worth more than the Papa John's deal, a source familiar with the agreement told CNN. The agreement gives Pizza Hut, which is owned by Yum Brands, an array of exclusive marketing rights."We are thrilled to have Pizza Hut, an industry leader and one of America's favorite brands, as an official league sponsor," NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement.The sponsorship will roll out with the upcoming NFL Draft in April.Artie Starrs, the president of Pizza Hut U.S., said in a statement that the sponsorship potential was "endless. He said it would be "great fun for Pizza Hut, the NFL and everyone who loves pizza and football."Papa John's said Tuesday that its parting with the league was mutual. The company reported that its North American sales were down 3.9% from a year ago.  1173

PIERCE TOWNSHIP, Ohio -- Getting cited by the police doesn't always have to be a bad thing in Pierce Township. Police Chief Jeff Bachman said his men have added a new type of ticket to their arsenal: A yellow slip recognizing the actions of residents who take time to do the right thing for others."You'll get a call from maybe a disabled motorist, someone with a flat tire, and you pull up and someone is already changing that tire," Bachman said. Those are the people honored by the new golden tickets, each of which comes with a Walmart gift card. Bachman said he hoped the initiative would inject some happiness into his community and help people connect with police in a positive way."We see a lot of negativity on the news, in our job, but why not accent the positive?" he said. "People do good things."Twenty-one-year-old Sadie LaRoque and 20-year-old Matthew Murphy were the latest golden ticket recipients this week."We were sitting in the parking lot of the movie theater after our movie got out, and we saw some teenagers acting suspicious -- leaning up against somebody's car, touching it," LaRoque said.These witnesses turned investigators wanted to do the right thing, so they approached the teenagers and jotted down their license plate information, which went a long way for police. "We have great residents," Officer Philip Gammon said. "If we get a chance to recognize the good things that they're doing, I think we should take the opportunity to do that." 1506

Papa John's is breaking up with the NFL.The pizza chain, which last year blamed slumping sales on the NFL's handling of player protests, is ending its sponsorship of the league."While the NFL remains an important channel for us, we have determined that there are better ways to reach and activate this audience," CEO Steve Ritchie said a conference call to discuss the company's quarterly earnings.Papa John's has been a league sponsor since 2010. It will keep its partnerships with 22 of the individual teams.Last fall, then-CEO John Schnatter received heavy criticism after he said Papa John's sales were hurt by the NFL's handling of protests by players who knelt during the National Anthem."This should have been nipped in the bud a year and a half ago," Schnatter told investors at the time. "The controversy is polarizing the customer, polarizing the country."The company later apologized."The statements made on our earnings call were describing the factors that impact our business and we sincerely apologize to anyone that thought they were divisive," it said on Twitter. "That definitely was not our intention."Schnatter left the company at the end of the year.Ritchie said the parting was mutual. The NFL did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Papa John's reported Tuesday that North American sales were down 3.9% from a year ago. The stock has lost a third of its value since June."We have really got a lot of key learnings on how we can invest our dollars more appropriately," Ritchie added. "So we thank the NFL for all the efforts and the partnership that we've had over the last seven years, and we'll continue to be very prominent on NFL game days as we move forward" in a different way.Papa John's stock was down almost 6% after hours. 1775

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