Hello ooogleemooglee,
I do not know from your question where you are geographically, and if
you need legal clarification for this, you should contact a lawyer in
your area anyway to find out specifically what the law says.
My answer would be to say that it is solicitation to hand out flyers
door to door, but the more accurate word would be 'canvassing',
although that word can be selling something as well.
The definition for the word 'solicitation' is:
"plead for something: to try to get something by making insistent
requests or pleas". Another definition that applies to this topic is:
"to plead with or petition a person or group for something".
Source: Encarta® World English Dictionary [North American Edition]
URL: http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/dictionary/DictionaryResults.aspx?search=Solicitation
As you can see, under this definition going door to door would be
included as solicitation.
Here is the definition for canvassing:
http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/dictionary/DictionaryResults.aspx?search=canvassing
I am sure though, that there are people who would not consider this as
being solicitation (in the same league as a vacuum cleaner
salesperson), and that there are many people who do hand out flyers
without problems. Think about this: What is the worst that could
happen to you? If you do this more often than once, take notes about
which people are not interested.
If you find that most people are not being negative about this, I do
not think that you should have a problem. Usually people will threaten
to call the police if you do not leave, not calling them if you do
leave. You should always tell a person immediately that you are not
selling anything but that you are giving out information.
Have you thought about talking to your post office to perhaps mail out
the flyers? I know that in my area it is possible to do this for a
huge discount (over what regular postage would cost) and the post
office has a list of people who are not interested in receiving flyers
like this.
I also remember an event roughly a year ago when people who were
putting pamphlets on other peoples vehicles in a parking lot at a
shopping mall. I happened to walk past and was able to listen in on a
discussion where security asked them to please leave, but said that
they would be pleased to put a stack inside the store for people who
want to have a copy to take one.
I found an extremelly interesting article for you if you are in the
United States. You can read it here:
http://www.freedomforum.org/templates/document.asp?documentID=16431
According to the above article, you have every right to go door to
door. Please consider though, that if the majority of people are being
negative about it... you should consider other means of distributing
the flyers.
Some other links for you:
http://www.ohiocitizen.org/campaigns/prevention/marion/canvass-challenge.htm
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/law/jan-june02/solicitors_2-26.html
http://www.aclu-wa.org/issues/freespeech/Medina-5.8.01.html
I hope that this is what you were looking for. Please let me know if
you need any clarifications.
tisme-ga
Search strategy:
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