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Finance committee advances changes to Cheyenne's door-to-door solicitation rules, narrows morning hours
Summary
The Cheyenne Finance Committee recommended advancing an amended ordinance that clarifies who must obey "no soliciting" notices (including political, religious and charitable groups), shortens permissible morning solicitation to start at 8 a.m., and removes the term "pamphleteering" from the code. The committee will ask the full council to consider the ordinance on second reading.
Deputy City Attorney David Hopkinson told the Finance Committee on Nov. 18 that most edits to the municipal solicitation code are clarifications, but two substantive changes are proposed: subsection (b) would explicitly make political, religious and charitable actors subject to a posted "no soliciting" notice at a residence, and subsection (e) would change the timing rule tied to morning and evening solicitation.
"The majority of what's there is really more clarification as opposed to substantive changes," Hopkinson said as he walked the committee through the redlined ordinance. He pointed to new subparagraphs that would require listed entities to abide by a resident's posted no-soliciting sign and described the timing change in subsection (e).
Councilman Moody proposed one amendment to subsection (e) to change the morning start hour from 7 a.m. to 8 a.m.; he said he did not want residents awakened before 8 a.m. The amendment was moved, seconded and adopted. Separately, Councilmember Nelson Esquivel moved to strike paragraph 5 because of concerns about limiting candidates' access to voters; after discussion the committee agreed to remove the single word "pamphleteering" from the paragraph rather than retain the original formulation. Hopkinson noted that "pamphleteering" is not defined in the code and would ordinarily mean handing out pamphlets.
Members debated whether political canvassing and literature drops constitute "solicitation." Several council members described routine campaign practices and expressed concern about disenfranchising voters; others emphasized residents' privacy and the purpose of no-soliciting notices.
With amendments adopted, a motion to recommend the ordinance for second reading at the full council meeting Monday was moved and seconded. The committee forwarded the amended ordinance to the council for consideration on second reading.
Next steps: the City Council will take up the ordinance on second reading at its next scheduled meeting. The committee record shows the ordinance was recommended to advance with the adopted amendments.
