The Solicitation Ordinance
s tatus: passed ( Dec 09 ? )
See www.Abington.org to
find the code enforcement book with the actual ordinance and
Rules: solicitors must sign up at the Township building and pay
$100 a day to be able to solicit
Opt Out : you may sign up on the list at the Township building.
Solicitors are given your house
number and told that they may not solicit there. Or you may post
a no solicitation sign
which should prevent solicitors or you may post a no trespassing
sign which should
prevent everyone.
Your Voice Needed : Ask your Commissioner to amend the
ordinance so that any and all solicitors have their full contact
info and their permit /registration number on any lierature they
leave at your door. This will help residents know immediately
who was there
& if they are legally there .
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11-10 Update a year later : The solicitation ordinance
that was passed by year ago has spawned a proliferation of
solicitors that are now legally in our neighborhoods. In
my opinion, it has made our Township substantially more
dangerous - in many ways:
Solicitors are now allowed at any door in the Township that does
not post a no trespassing or no solicitation sign, or is not on
the Township sign-up list ( and let's face it most residents do
not even know about the Township sign-up list---and even if they
do sign up solicitors regularly violate all regulations,
this one would certainly be no different )
Solicitors apparently are not required even to have full contact
information on flyers that they leave at your door, so you
have no way of knowing who has been at your door -nor are they
required to leave notice that they have been there. One
solicitor, a curb # painter, had flyers all over the Township
but could not even be located by the Township-so they certainly
had not signed up, nor paid.
No one wants to cry wolf - so we pay less attention now
that we know the people going up and down our driveways and at
our doors could be legal. Before, we were alert when we saw
someone go to more than one house. We watched out for each other
and had few strangers in our neighborhoods to worry about.
Even legitimately signed up solicitors can be casing your
house for someone else. I do not want to post a no
trespassing sign to discourage friends neighbors or others ( by
law every one is to pay attention to such a sign) and yet - I do
not want every Tom Dick and Harry to be able to come beyond the
end of my driveway where the public sidewalk is. I could
sign up on the "do not solicit list on the Township" but since
only a tiny fraction of residents know about this list and since
all the rules and regulations are regularly disregarded by
solicitors, this is not a reasonable solution to a Township wide
problem.
Our elderly, and people who live alone are more vulnerable.
It is absurd to create a law, when there are so many other ways
to do business, that would put both my family, and disabled,
elderly, or those who are alone at greater risk
How is it corporate voices have been put ahead of ours
again? I would venture a guess that very few really
want this -- so if our legislators are working in
our interests, this kind of thing should not keep happening
again and again. Like many other things that we have been forced
into to accommodate businesses, we should be opting in not
having to opt out.
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On Dec
10th the Township will hold a hearing about passing an ordinance that
does
3 things:
A) It
would allow commercial solicitors to obtain a permit and come
to your door and
B) It
has a section on "canvassers" who would also have to comply
with no solicitation signs. Included in this definition are
those who :
."
..... conduct any similar work [to those doing surveys or coming
for religious or political purposes] which, by its nature,
involves door-to-door or place-to-place activity, including
distribution of circulars but not for commercial activity of
any kind."
C) Permit fees are set at $100 per day , prohibitive to
your neighbor's son starting his own landscaping venture who
might mow your lawn at 1/2 the price, but a large company who
charges much more would be welcome to meet these fees and hire
people to solicit township wide -another example of how the big
guys bump out everyone else & keep prices high .
So let's see --
Neighbors letting neighbors know about issues like .......the
re-zoning......like the Old York Road Corridor..... like a
block party ...... or like this ordinance could be required
to cease & desist or face the penalties the way the language is written currently,
if they wanted to be free to let ALL neighbors know .
And people who didn't want solicitors SELLING things and had to
post a no solicitation sign to prevent that, would now be blocking out things
they might want. This does not really work well for
us, as residents who need more communication and more
information in our government process, does it?
When I suggested that we needed language to ensure
that neighbors were not inhibited from talking to their
neighbors - especially about important issues, it was suggested
in return to me that "selective enforcement " might even take
place - the police might not bother some for violating this
ordinance. OK but with a single "complaint" you might be
in fear of suffering the $100 to $1,000 fine (and imprisonment).
Can you imagine the effect this would have on communication
between residents (which already needs as much help as it can
get ) . Communications at virtually every level have already in
this township have been interfered with. You only have to watch
the Nov 12 , 2009 Commissioners meeting to see how hard the
Commissioners work to keep me from reading out the above
wording so that the others in the room know what I am talking
about. The interference has done a great deal to keep
residents in the dark about what their government officials are
doing.
Advertised in November, this
item will apparently come up for a hearing Dec 10th
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Here are some things for you to consider .
First -
do you believe that the township
should even allow commercial enterprises onto your doorstep?
There are issues of people on shift work having their peace
disturbed, for instance, as well as security issues .
Unless the majority wants this - we should have a legal right to
curtail this annoyance.,
Second - if
we are somehow "forced" into this (not without a fight, I would
hope ) should it be that those who
DO want to allow solicitors to come up to their doors post a
"Solicitors Allowed" sign rather that the other way
around. There is some case law about that I believe but I
think we would want to examine this thoroughly. If the
case law was obtained while citizens were uniformed, it would
explain a lot.
Third -
shouldn't there be strong and specific
language in this ordinance that this policy does not apply to
neighbors sharing information with neighbors or
coming with an invitation or coming to talk about a tree limb
or other matter. Our prior ordinance did not exclude non-profits
or political candidates or neighbors - which is why I believe it
DID conform with the law .
Fourth - shouldn't there be a strong
differentiation between commercial solicitors /canvassers/ and
neighbors- and shouldn't we make sure that is
spelled out clearly & no one is forced into blocking out all
just because they want to block
out one. There are 5 groups --- Solicitors as commercial-for
funds/ Non- Profits for funds / Non- Profits for info not funds
/ Canvassers for info not funds / Neighbors for info not funds
.
These are 5 completely separate concepts. Otherwise no
one will be able to have others at their door if they do not
also want commercial solicitors.
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The solicitor
has told us case law now requires us to permit the commercial.
But when I asked for the case law, what my commissioner gave me
did not seem to me to verify a need to change at all
One was
Town of
Green River, Wyoming vs. Fuller Brush Company, 65 F.2d 112
(10th Cir. 1933) and that one was LOST by Fuller
Brush company and there is much discussion on the internet about
that decision being upheld. Where those ordinances have
been challenged is where they tried to exclude religious
or other entities along with the commercial.
The second was
Edenfield v. Fane, 507
U.S. 761 (1993). and this seems not to be directly about
door to door solicitation at all - the case involves phone &
other direct contact.
If the law as it stands - or "case
law" was the end all or be all of what was legal - we
would never see two lawyers on opposite sides of an issue. And I
believe that many other townships could be considered possible
allies in this issue . I have seen our township expose us
to litigation in areas where our saftey was not an issue & for
benefits that only a small number of residents will enjoy the
advantages of ---- I would certainly like to think that my
township would work for my interests here.
The
Commissioners voted Nov 14th 2009 to allow the
advertising of this ordinance
Please share your opinion by clicking here .....
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If you have any updated information, or something you
would like to share, please
Send your the
information to:
lel@abingtoncitizens.com
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