DELTONA -- A decades-old debate has reached the suburban streets here.
Residents have been complaining to their city commissioner, Zenaida Denizac, about door-to-door salespeople and urging a no-solicitation law.
The City Commission will review a proposed ordinance on first reading at a meeting Tuesday night.
The law would require residents who don't want to be bothered to post a "no soliciting" sign. It would force solicitors and peddlers to heed such signage, while also limiting soliciting to people age 14 or older.
"It's the safety issue," Denizac said. "People are constantly knocking on doors trying to sell something."
Denizac said she believes many of the salespeople are from "outside Deltona and Volusia County," selling everything from vacuum cleaners to meat to solar panels. She is also concerned about children going door-to-door.
"These days, I would never let one of my grandkids or even my kids when they were growing up go door-to-door to fundraise," she said. "You don't know who's in there."
The National Field Selling Association, a trade group formed by companies engaged in door-to-door sales, contends its members have rights protected by the Supreme Court to solicit customers at private residences.
That wasn't always the case. A 1933 Court of Appeals ruling upheld a Green River, Wyo., ordinance that made soliciting a misdemeanor, and many communities copied that in the years following.
"(But) in 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court held that even speech that "does no more than propose a commercial transaction is protected by the First Amendment," a white paper on the association's website reads.
The association acknowledges that some "wayward activity" has given door-to-door salespeople a bad name, but says its members - including the sellers of cleaning products and magazine subscriptions - engage in professional practices.
The City Commission will review the ordinance at 6:30 p.m. in City Hall, 2345 Providence Blvd.
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