Peddlers, Solicitors, and Transient Merchants
Door-to-door sales have been a business strategy for many years and it still is. During the warmer months, people will be knocking on doors and handing out booklets, providing services, or selling goods just like their predecessors did in the 1950s, during the heyday of door-to-door selling. Door-to-door selling has a long history in the U.S., probably dating to the country's early days when peddlers carried their wares in tin carriers or piled them in a wagon. It is not as common, but it still happens today. Below you can read information about the City Code and inform yourself on best practices.
City Code Chapter 122: The purpose of this ordinance is to protect residents of the City against fraud, unfair competition, and intrusion into the privacy of their homes by licensing and regulating peddlers, solicitors, and transient merchants (door-to-door visitors). Licenses issued by the city are in force and effect only between the hours of eight o'clock a.m. and eight p.m. Licensing is required, so ask them to show a city-issued badge.
LICENSE EXEMPTIONS. The following are excluded from the application of this chapter.
- Newspapers. Persons delivering, collecting for, or selling subscriptions to newspapers.
- Club Members. Members of local civic and service clubs, Boy Scout, Girl Scout, 4-H Clubs, Future Farmers of America, and similar organizations.
- Local Residents and Farmers. Local residents and farmers offer for sale their own products.
- Students. Students representing the Bondurant-Farrar Community School District conducting projects sponsored by organizations recognized by the school.
- Route Sales. Route delivery persons who only incidentally solicit additional business or make special sales.
- Resale or Institutional Use. Persons customarily call on businesses or institutions for the purposes of selling products for resale or institutional use.
If they do not have a badge and after they exit the premises contact Polk County Sherriff’s office at 515-286-3333.