Independence is considering increasing licensing fees for door-to-door solicitors.
City Administrator Chris Moriconi and City Clerk Gina Rawe brought the issue before the City Council this week, arguing their current fee structure is structured in such a way that it costs the city money as the licensing process requires background checks and other paperwork that’s time-consuming enough to eat up the money currently taken in with fees.
“If you’re a business, and you come in, you want to sell vacuum cleaners, there’s the initial $50 fee,” said Moriconi. “For all the vacuum cleaner salespeople, it’s $25. So, it was discussed briefly this morning at a staff meeting to make everything $50.”
Rawe described the amount of time it took to complete the process, both for herself and the police department.
“It takes about 15 minutes,” Rawe said. “It takes the police anywhere from one to two hours.”
“I think the final straw was there was a company that brought in like 30 reps,” Moriconi said. “So, 30 times all that – background checks and all the work.”
This prompted a broader discussion of door-to-door solicitation. Moriconi stated the number of solicitors in the city tended to increase in the summer when colleges let out and students looking to make some money got jobs with door-to-door sales companies.
“A lot of college kids want to make some money over the summer, which isn’t their fault, but… we shouldn’t be losing money,” Moriconi said. “The taxpayers shouldn’t be out money because somebody wants to come in and sell.”
“I don’t think a lot of people are aware that they have to have a solicitor’s license,” said Council Member Carol Franzen, who added that she gets door knocks at her house, even though she’s on the no-knock list. Independence residents can sign up for the no-knock list here.
Rawe didn’t think that was the case.
“It’s a lot of the same companies every summer, so they know,” Rawe said.
Mayor Chris Reinserman thought a public information campaign on social media might be helpful to avoid confusion.
“It may not be a bad idea to go ahead and put up a post: ‘A solicitor’s license is issued to ABC company’ and then also on the tagline of that: ‘As a reminder, whatever vendors need to have this license,'” said Reinersman.
Reinserman recommended that the city’s Finance Director, Rachyl Gibson, do an analysis to find out just how much money the city was actually losing. It was possible the city could increase penalties for violating the license ordinance, Reinersman said, but the council didn’t come down on an exact number on the meeting.
No official action was taken at the meeting, but Moriconi said he would likely have a draft ordinance about the issue he could present to the council by the beginning of 2026.