AUTOMOBILE JUNKYARDS 419 



made off with all the beauty in this great United States. We are 

 merely the end of a line of some six million automobiles, that will 

 come off the highways this year. I would be the first to admit that 

 there are those in my industry who make little or no effort to beautify 

 their salvage yards, but certainly there are other businesses just as 

 unsightly. A large number of these dealers are in the parts salvage 

 business, paying from $ 1 00 to $ 1 ,000 for late-model wrecked auto- 

 mobiles for salvage. This is our stock, just as the department store 

 stocks clothes. We have little or no interest in obsolete automobiles. 



MICHAEL R. FAGAN. I have heard discussions on both taxation 

 and State regulation. There are a couple of observations that I 

 would like to make. 



The easiest, I guess, would be on regulation. I think there is a 

 crying need for coordination and revaluation of overlapping State 

 regulation, and I think your committee should come out with a reso- 

 lution to investigate and iron out these differences. As an example, 

 in the State of California it is possible for an applicant to secure a 

 license which directly violates the local law, zoning. 



As an example, a downtown department store can meet all the 

 criteria for the issuance of an auto-wrecking license as a normal func- 

 tion carried on in the basement bargain center, while the very location 

 of the department store is in a commercial zone. This, of course, is 

 an easy example, but there are other more technical examples. 



In the area of taxation, I have met with the Inland Auto Wreckers 

 Association, who operate in our particular area, and they have 

 pointed out that there is apparently a trend of change in the type of 

 auto wrecking activity normally associated adjacent to urban areas 

 where the dismantling and holding of the vehicles is eliminating itself 

 from the scene because of the high rate of taxation. 



There has been indication that these businesses will seek reevalua- 

 tion under taxation as a commercial use, because of the percentage 

 of their businesses being used for retail outlets. Heretofore, we have 

 always considered auto wrecking as an industrial use and conse- 

 quently have taxed them on that basis. 



The third and final point is what happened to the auto wrecking 

 yard along the main street of a town, where the interstate freeway 

 has bypassed this small community, where zoning cannot be applied 

 retroactively. 



The Federal Government may have to encourage and put money 

 in the local communities to provide for the relocation of the facility 



