One City Could Require Girl Scouts to Get a Permit to Sell Cookies Door-to-Door

An ordinance currently under consideration by the Snellville City Council in Gwinnett County, Georgia, would require a permit for Girl Scouts to sell cookies door-to-door.

Image Source: WSB-TV

The city council said the ordinance is about cracking down on rampant soliciting.

“People come door-to-door after hailstorms or during the spring months to solicit, we want to make sure that those who are coming to sell something in our city, that we have a way to make them accountable and keep tabs on them," Snellville spokesman Brian Arrington told WSB-TV.

If the measure passes, it would require that anyone looking to sell door-to-door apply for a permit with the police, including the parents of kids in the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts of America.

Applying for a permit would require a background check, WSB-TV reported, meaning the parents of kids selling door-to-door would come under close scrutiny by law enforcement officials.

Parents would also be required to accompany their children.

“The parents would be the ones to come to the police station themselves to actually get registered,” Arrington said.

People who back the plan insist that it won't create an unnecessary burden for parents.

“This is not to stop the Girl Scouts or the Boy Scouts,” Tricia Rawlings of Snellville’s neighborhood alert program told WSB.

Rawlings added that the proposal would help reduce the number of solicitations that resident have complained about in recent years, adding that it could also crack down fraud.

“We had a neighborhood recently where a lady, an elderly lady, was out talking to a solicitor giving all her information, even wrote her Social Security number on a piece of paper,” Rawlins said. “We have people going door-to-door without any identification and sometimes it’s late at night and dark outside. People are scared.”

Resident will be given an opportunity later this year to voice their opinion on proposed measure.

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