What's specific to Los Angeles

Los Angeles is one of the few cities in the country whose permit categories name watches outright. That makes the threshold question easy and the rest of the work administrative. The substance of what you report and how long you hold it is state law, covered in the California guide.

The permit category that names watches

LAMC § 103.311 creates two permits and puts them on either side of a line:

• Secondhand dealer — buying, selling, or otherwise dealing in secondhand, rebuilt or reconditioned goods, wares and merchandise. The definition expressly excludes secondhand dealer-jewelry.
• Secondhand dealer – jewelry — buying, selling, or otherwise dealing in secondhand jewelry, precious and semi-precious stones and metals and imitations thereof, watches, rings, bracelets and similar goods.

A watch dealer is in the second box. Neither business may be carried on without a written permit from the Board of Police Commissioners (§ 103.311(b)).

What it costs

From the Business Permit Fee Schedule at § 103.12, as amended in April 2026:

• Secondhand (Jewelry) — $453.00 original, $393.00 annual renewal
• Secondhand (General) — $453.00 original, $393.00 annual renewal
• Junk Dealer — $405.00 original, $393.00 annual renewal
• Pawnbroker — $1,164.00 original, $393.00 annual renewal

The Office of Finance collects it, and will not accept an application that arrives without the fee. Add the state's $300 Department of Justice fee, which your licensing authority collects and forwards.

One permit, one address

Three rules work together here, and they matter more to a modern dealer than the fee does:

• § 103.09 — a permit is valid only for the address on it.
• § 103.11 — an additional location needs another permit at the full original fee, not a discount.
• § 103.08 — a permit cannot be sold, transferred, or assigned, and a transfer of stock that changes the controlling interest in a corporate permittee requires a new permit. Buying someone's shop does not buy their permit.

State law points the same way: the business may be carried on only at the location on the licence, and every place you store stock must be named on it.

Records for five years

LAMC § 103.13 requires permittees to keep records on the Board's forms and keep them five years — two years longer than the state's three-year rule for interdealer transfer paperwork. § 103.14 makes both the premises and the records open to a police officer or Board representative during all business hours, and refusing an inspection or a copy is itself an offence.

§ 103.15 adds verified written reports to the Chief of Police on the Board's forms, on top of the CAPSS filing the state requires. If your filing system is a shoebox, five years is the number that will break it — the recordkeeping article covers what a workable one looks like.

Two rules that catch dealers out

Nobody under 18, and a fake ID is no defence. § 103.25 bars a secondhand dealer-jewelry permittee or their employee from buying, trading, or acquiring any interest in goods from a person under 18 — and a statement by that person that they are over 18 does not excuse the violation. The state's § 21643 bars the transaction; Los Angeles removes the excuse.

Pull your listings within 24 hours. § 103.311(e) bars advertising goods that are not actually for sale at the premises when the ad is placed, and requires any advertisement to be withdrawn or cancelled within 24 hours after the goods sell. Written for newspapers, it reads squarely onto a marketplace storefront left up after the watch is gone.

Hours of business are also restricted, but the code does not print them: § 103.24 says you may not purchase or receive any article outside the hours the Board sets by rule, and a permittee running more than one permitted business must observe the most restrictive hours of any of them. Ask the Commission Investigation Division for the current rule.

Business tax

Separately from the police permit, § 21.03 requires a business tax registration certificate from the Office of Finance, and bars engaging in a taxable business without one. Retail sales sit in Gross Receipts Fund Class 2 (§ 21.43) at Tax Rate B — $1.32 per $1,000 of gross receipts (§ 21.33(b)), though § 21.03.1 subjects the printed rates to an annual reduction the Director of Finance calculates, so confirm the current year's figure with the Office of Finance rather than reading it off the code.

One provision is worth knowing if you ship: § 21.168.1 excludes from the retail sales computation the gross receipts of goods the seller ships to purchasers outside California. For a dealer whose buyers are mostly out of state, that changes the size of the bill materially.