By GRAHAM BROOKS / Staff Writer

HELENA–An amendment was approved by the Helena City Council pertaining to door-to-door sales and soliciting within the city limits to update an existing ordinance.

The Helena City Council members, specifically Helena Councilman Hal Woodman, worked on updating and improving the ordinance in months past and on Monday, Sept. 14, the amendment was approved.

“I think it’s a much better ordinance now,” said Woodman. “We’ve had several residents complain about some of the aggressive peddlers coming door-to-door and so we’ve made a couple of changes.”

The amendment of ordinance #734-07 included the following changes and revisions:

• Limiting the time of solicitation from 9 a.m. to sunset as opposed to the current sunrise to sunset timeframe.
• Making it a violation to knock on the door or ring the doorbell of a residence that has a no soliciting sign on the door.
• Solicitors must have a city-issued ID visible at all times while working as a door-to-door salesperson in Helena.

Woodman brought both a sample city-issued ID as well as a sample no soliciting sign to the Council Meeting to show those in attendance.

“We are requiring them to have name badges that are issued from the city,” said Woodman. “I think a lot of times they will take one of our licenses and Xerox it and send 30 people in a minivan out to the neighborhoods. This would actually have the name of their company, their name and also a phone number. If you have a no soliciting sign on your door, they are not allowed to knock on your door.”

It was noted by Woodman that the amendment and the no soliciting ordinance does not pertain to non-profit organizations such as church groups, youth groups, school organizations, etc.

“The good part is that we’re going to do some retraining with the Helena Police Department to make sure they know when to eject these people,” said Helena Mayor Mark Hall. “One of the ways is if they (solicitors) violate any of these ordinances in any manner, their one-day permit is pulled and police will show them the exit.”