EL PASO, Texas -- A bill to crack down on excessive interest rates and fees sounds like a smart idea but in the end it may affect families who look for short term loans at pawn shops.

Pawn shop owners say business has always been steady but just this past month they've seen an increase in customers.

"We're starting to see more people now that they've gone through their tax refunds, they're starting to come back and borrow more money,” said Charlie Haddad, owner of Quality Coin Jewelry and Loan Co.

"I've tried loans at banks, they're not even doing the loans anymore, they say that my credit wasn't good enough and it's just hard,” said Jessica Talley, of central El Paso.

Quality Coin, a locally owned pawn shop, has been in business for nearly 30 years and sales keep booming despite a weakened economy, but a Senate bill could hurt their business.

"If they can just say the bill pertains to pay day loans that would be OK and leave the pawn shops out of it,” said Haddad.

But Senate bill 500 says a loan is a loan, no matter where it's from, and looks to cap interest rates at 36 percent. Meaning if someone borrows $100 and pays it back within two weeks the store would earn less than $2 in profit.

"About 70 percent of our business is pawns and it would probably affect us negatively on the smaller loans,” Haddad added.

Thankfully for Haddad, his business primarily hands out larger loans with lower rates but he says smaller shops could close down and if the bill puts them out of business some say its citizens who will suffer.

"How would we get the money that we need, the short term loans,” said Talley.

The bill would also impact several other areas like mortgages and car loans.