Another Pawn Shop To Open On Coney Island Ave – Sign Of The Times?

Another pawn shop is coming to Sheepshead Bay, this time at 2695 Coney Island Avenue – just up the block from one we reported on last month. It replaces City Smokes, a roll-your-own-cigarette place that closed in the face of a city lawsuit.

It’s the third pawn shop to hit the area in as many months, with the first opening in mid-February. That’s got our tipster, Paypaul, wondering about the direction of the neighborhood:

Now it seems a number of Pawn shops have opened or are scheduled to open in Sheepshead Bay. I spotted this one on Coney Island Avenue and it’s a block away from another one. Pawn shops are usually located in neighborhoods with a low income base or diminishing economy. Perhaps not all of us can afford the limo service up the block so we put things in hock to do so?

While others have also grumbled that this could be a sign of a declining Sheepshead Bay, the area is doing fairly well economically. We still have a more affluent, better-educated population than most of the rest of Brooklyn, and our real estate is higher than many other comparable areas.

So is it a decline in the neighborhood, or perhaps a changing trend in the clientele of these shops? What do you think?