There is no discretion in it.

A licensed broker cannot take property from a minor under any circumstances, with or without a parent, in a way that will satisfy the statute.

And then — this is the part that does the work — the broker transmits that transaction electronically, that same business day, to a reporting system that police departments subscribe to.

Every ticket.

Every night.

Our department gets a feed of every pledge and every outright purchase made in the city, searchable by serial number and by name, and it is one of the single most effective property-crime tools that exists, and it has been running quietly in the background of American cities for twenty years while everybody argued about other things.

So on Monday afternoon a transaction went into that system from Pine Street Loan and Jewelry at 1400 Fifth Street.