Guy Warthen calls his used bicycles and parts merchandise. City officials call them a nuisance.

Warthen, who owns Guy's Bike Shop, 410 N. Main St., was contacted last July about excess bikes and parts outside his shop, said Dee Rosenbaum, Spanish Fork chief of police. The law gives Warthen 30 days to clean up his property, but he has done very little in the nine months since he was first contacted, Rosenbaum said."I don't want to really bad-mouth the city entirely because they've given me a long time" to clean things up, Warthen said, agreeing that his place needed sprucing up. Warthen trimmed his bike inventory from 375 to about 300 after the initial request. But he thinks the city's latest request that he cut his numbers down to 25 or 30 bikes is unreasonable.

"I'll admit I've still got some cleaning to do on the outside here, but weeding (the bikes) down to 25 or 30, that's weeding them down too far," Warthen said.

Carrying just 30 bikes would limit Warthen to about one bike in each class or category, which isn't enough to remain in the bike business, he said. About 13 percent of the shop's business comes from used bikes, while the shop's showroom houses about 150 new bikes at full inventory, Warthen said.

Rosenbaum said the city doesn't want to put Warthen out of business; it just wants him to make his outside area "manageable, practical and workable."

"He's done a little bit," Rosenbaum admitted, "but a very little."

Warthen has thousands of junk parts, including 400 old rims, and has very little turnover in inventory, Rosenbaum said.

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Warthen said much of what the city calls junk is viable merchandise, albeit old and sometimes rusty. For example, people buy used quick-release hubs from Warthen for $5 and use them in making their own bike racks for their truck beds. Buying a new rack costs $38, Warthen said.

Warthen has customers from as far north as West Jordan and as far south as Richfield, he said, because he is the only person who stocks used parts in such quantity. A man recently bought 20 frames, back wheels and cranks from Warthen, something he couldn't have done as cheaply from any other source, the businessman said.

Warthen will go to court Thursday. If he loses, he may face a $1,000 fine and jail time until his lot is cleaned, he said.

Rosenbaum said city officials don't want to send Warthen to jail, they just want him to clean up his property.

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