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Orange board sends amended door-to-door solicitation ordinance to public hearing
Summary
Selectmen voted to send revisions to chapter 302 (pedaling and solicitation) to a July public hearing. Key changes include raising the application fee, mandatory veteran exemptions, optional nonprofit exemptions, police background checks, clarified enforcement, an appeal process for denials, and proposed solicitation hours (10 a.m.–4 p.m.) with board edits requested.
The Orange Board of Selectmen voted June 10 to send an updated version of chapter 302 (pedaling and solicitation) to a public hearing at its July meeting after discussing several substantive edits requested by board members and the police department.
Town counsel and the police worked on the draft to address complaints about unlicensed door-to-door solicitation. Owen Weaver, who presented the ordinance changes, said the substantive amendments include increasing the application fee from $25 to as much as $200 (allowed by state statute), adding a mandatory fee exemption for qualifying veterans and an optional exemption for nonprofits, authorizing police to conduct background checks on applicants, adding youth-sports exemptions, creating a formal appeal process for license denials, and adding enforcement language to allow police officers to enforce violations.
Board members debated the proposed fixed end time for solicitation. The draft set a definitive prohibitive window from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.; some members argued for using a sunset-based end ("a half hour before sunset") or a later clock time such as 5:00 p.m. to avoid unduly restricting legitimate vendors and nonprofit fundraisers. Selectman Mitch Goldblat suggested broadening the list of exempted events to include scouts and other youth organizations rather than naming specific leagues. Weaver agreed to prepare language that would broaden exemptions to "youth organizations" or similarly generic terms.
The board voted to send the cleaned-up ordinance to the July meeting's public hearing with the edits discussed. Owen Weaver noted the statutory authority cited in the memo (General Statutes §7-148c and §21-37) and confirmed the changes were drafted in collaboration with the police chief and assistant chief.
