Vendors who want to sell their products door-to-door or from their food truck in Greenwood will likely pay a higher fee.
The city has proposed updating its rules that regulate who can sell their products door-to-door or along the street, which hadn’t been changed in decades, city attorney Krista Taggart said.
The rules referred to newsboys and people delivering milk and ice, but didn’t specifically address food trucks, for example.
That made the licensing process overly complicated, Taggart said.
Now, the new rules that were unanimously given a first approval by the city council require vendors to pay $100 for a 180-day license that allows them to sell their products within the city limits, with a one-time option to pay $25 to extend it for another 180 days.
The city council would need to give the rules a final approval before they would go into effect.
Vendors are required to give the city information about previous places they’ve worked and provide references, which will be used by the police department to conduct a background check.
Under the current rules, the fees ranged from $5 for a one-day license to $80 for a one-year license.
City officials said the changes will make the permits easier for staff to handle, but could also deter some vendors from coming to Greenwood to sell their products.
The elimination of short-term permits could result in fewer permits being issued, but that might be beneficial, council member Ron Bates said.
Residents often consider peddlers to be a nuisance, so having fewer of them isn’t a bad thing, he said.
Including food trucks in the new rules is also beneficial because in the past, vendors such as food trucks were able to be licensed, but could have been labeled as a peddler, solicitor or transient merchant.
That made the process more complicated because staff had to determine what category to best place the food truck in, Taggart said.
The new rules won’t change how or where food trucks are allowed to operate, she said.
Food trucks do have to be licensed by the county health department, which can range from a cost of $50 to $300 depending on the length of the license and the number of employees.
The new rules will also double the bond vendors have to pay from $500 to $1,000, a figure that hasn’t been increased since 1983.
The bond would cover fines if the vendor were to violate any city rules and would allow a resident to seek reimbursement if they were unhappy with their purchase.
The new regulations also include some additional exceptions to the license requirements, such as for children 12 years old and younger, which is simply putting into writing how the rules are already being enforced, Taggart said.
Door-to-door sales by Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts or for school fundraisers have always been allowed, she said.
“We don’t want to be unreasonable and prohibit those types of things,” she said.
Also being eliminated is the city’s ban on panhandling, since similar rules have been struck down by the Supreme Court, and other cities have had those rules challenged in court, Taggart said.
Similar state laws against panhandling would still apply, which make panhandling a misdemeanor in certain circumstances, such as if the person being asked for money is in a vehicle, near an ATM or standing in line, but removing the city rules would lessen the risk of a lawsuit, she said.
