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City-wide garage sale event may be on the horizon in Orillia

'Wouldn't it be cool if you could see where all the garage sales were on one day across the entire city?' asked Coun. Mason Ainsworth, who floated the idea

The hunt for bargains at local yard sales may get a little easier come 2023.

At council committee July 18, Coun. Mason Ainsworth brought forward an inquiry motion to explore the idea of hosting a city-wide garage sale event, where residents would be able to input their addresses on the city’s website and let people know what types of items they are putting up for sale.

Ainsworth said the idea came from discussions with residents at a recent West Ridge community yard sale, where 20-plus households participated.

“Wouldn't it be cool if you could see where all the garage sales were on one day across the entire city?” Ainsworth said. “You could also take it a little bit further with things (like a) citizen portal in the future, and you could say, ‘I'm looking specifically for baby clothes, or plants, or tools’ … and you could filter those results so that you could save yourself time.”

Giving residents the opportunity to seek out specific items would also cut down on waste left behind by yard sales, Ainsworth said.

“It will also help reduce the amount of garbage that gets produced within our city, because instead of people just throwing out their stuff at the end of a garage sale, hopefully more people actually get out and use it,” he said.

Council supported the idea, and directed staff to prepare a report outlining its feasibility, logistics, and costs for consideration during the 2023 budget deliberations.

City staff noted they currently do not have the technology for such a program.

“Currently, IT (staff) did advise that we don't have that technology available. However, it's certainly something that we could look at,” said communications manager Melissa Gowanlock. “Some of the other considerations we'd have to look at certainly would be: is providing an avenue for citizens to post items for sale, or register a garage sale, a typical municipal service? And our current resources as well.”

Coun. Jay Fallis questioned whether the event could serve as a vehicle for charity, as well.

While in university in Ottawa, Fallis discovered a nearby neighbourhood would donate proceeds from community yard sales to charity.

“I know with Ottawa, I think what they do is they recommend that 10 per cent of sales from a vendor goes to the food bank or something like that,” he said. “I don't know if that's something we can consider.”

Ainsworth said he is open to the idea, but that the key priority with his motion is to look at the possibility of setting up the city-wide yard sale directory and not to collect money from citizens.

“The intention of this particular motion is not to look at collecting any monies from anybody,” he said. “But I think your idea is definitely valid, and I think it could be interesting, depending on how this goes in the future, you could link in something there that says … if somebody wanted to have their garage sale with the benefits going towards a certain cause, that might be something that they could add on.”

In a discussion with city staff, Ainsworth said that concerns were raised about the potential for residents to post explicit items for sale, but the intention is to only allow options from a pre-populated list of categories.

“Folks didn't want people posting explicit products on the city's website,” he said. “The intention was just to have a registry in regards to people's address, then have a pre-populated area for people to select baby clothes, or plants, or whatever they want to have there, so there's no actual way to input information other than their address and there would be nothing potentially obscene.”


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Greg McGrath-Goudie

About the Author: Greg McGrath-Goudie

Greg has been with Village Media since 2021, where he has worked as an LJI reporter for CollingwoodToday, and now as a city hall/general assignment reporter for OrilliaMatters
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