Sunday, May 30, 1999
Many communities restrict sales
Anderson tables issue
BY ALLEN HOWARD
The Cincinnati Enquirer
ANDERSON TOWNSHIP — The lives of door-to-door salespeople or ice cream truck peddlers may vary in each township or municipality.
Anderson Township officials are looking at different regulations as they struggle to find a way to deal with transient vendors — which under state law includes ice cream truck drivers.
Township officials voted last week to table a resolution that would ban door-to-door sales and ice cream trucks.
“We think we have to come up with another solution other than a resolution,” said Russ Jackson, president of the township board of trustees.
Their search has gone as far as Bedford Heights in Cuyahoga County, where direct solicitation has been banned since 1976.
Though the law states that frozen dessert peddlers and street vendors are banned, along with solicitors, peddlers, hawkers, itinerant merchants and transient vendors, police chief Dominick Meuti said the law didn't apply to ice cream truck drivers.
“But they sort of eliminated themselves after the law was passed,” he said. “They were competing with ice cream stands and dairy marts. They found that nobody patronized them.”
The law also prohibits telephone solicitation, unless the sales person has been invited or requested.
The Cleveland Home Im provement Council challenged the constitutionality of the Bedford Heights law, but the courts upheld it.
Indian Hill has prohibited solicitation on private property since 1966.
“The law does not apply to ice cream trucks in the streets, but we haven't had that problem,” said Assistant City Manager Don Bisher. He said sales people may go on private property if they have been invited and show identification.
Door-to-door sales may take place in Forest Park from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., but the vendors have to go through a background check, have a doctor's statement clearing them of communicable diseases, pay a license fee and be approved by the police chief.
Ice cream trucks may operate in Forest Park as late as 9 p.m., but cannot operate during peak traffic time between 5:30 p.m. and 6:15 p.m.
Fairfax, Mason, Lebanon and Green and Springfield townships regulate transient vendors through licensing.
While much attention was focused on ice cream trucks when Anderson Township considered its resolution, Mr. Jackson said the problem is with door-to-door sales, especially calling on the elderly.
Township trustees had considered passing the resolutionand exempting ice cream trucks, but some residents accused them of putting a restriction on free trade.
“We certainly don't want those kinds of restrictions,” Mr. Jackson said. “But something has to be done to protect our senior citizens from harassments by door-to-door sales people.”
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