Auto Parts Or Junk? It’s All In The Definition

Junk - unlike beauty - should not be defined merely by the eye of the beholder.

Instead, according to attorney Ed Holmes, it should be defined by the city of Coeur d’Alene - especially if that’s how officials are going to refer to his client’s auto salvage yard.

Holmes represents Dennis Gloe, owner of Quality Auto Body at 460 W. Clayton. The city sued Gloe last year, claiming the estimated 150 wrecked and dismantled cars beside his business constitute an illegal junkyard.

Holmes and city attorneys, however, debated that point last week in court. A judge is considering the issue.

Gloe’s shop south of Dalton Avenue and west of U.S. Highway 95 is in the city’s light-manufacturing zoning district.

That district is intended to allow manufacturing, warehousing and industrial uses conducted indoors, city attorneys say. Junkyards are defined by state law as a place for storing, buying or selling dismantled automobile parts.

Gloe applied for a “junkyard license” with the Idaho Transportation Department in February 1993 but was rejected. The grounds? He didn’t meet city zoning code requirements, according to state documents included with court records.

But Gloe’s attorney says there’s a problem with the city code: City officials never defined “junkyard.”

“They define a tree. They define a kitchen. They define a day,” Holmes said. “There is not a definition for a junkyard.”

Without a definition for junkyard, the city can’t say Gloe has one, he said.

Instead, Holmes says, Gloe’s business could be called a number of things, all of which are OK in the zone: automobile and car accessory sales, car repair and cleaning or car warehousing and storage.

Gloe merely stores his supplies outside, just as do neighboring firms, which include a gravel company, radiator shop and building suppliers, Holmes said.

“They (the cars) don’t bother me any,” said Jim Wilson, owner of Jim’s Radiator, next door to Gloe. “The man is just making a living.”