The city of Parma, Ohio has moved to restrict the opening of new payday lending stores according to this article.    Here’s the meat of the piece:

       The law allows one store for each 10,000 residents. There are seven stores now in the city. With an 80,000-plus population, one more lender could open.

It’s astonishing to the Payday Pundit that city councils believe they have the expertise to know exactly how many payday loan stores a city should have.   And wouldn’t more stores, not less, drive competition and keep costs low? 

The Parma city council put restrictions on the number of “check cashing” stores in the city.   Currently, there are seven check cashing and payday lending stores in Parma.  The limit now is nine.

The Payday Pundit has a simple point to make:  It’s a $300 loan!

That’s right, the average payday loan is $300.   To paraphrase Churchill, never in the course of human history has so many made so much fuss over so little.