It’s back to the drawing boards for the proposed change to the Branson Municipal Code’s (BMC) solicitation ordinance. After a considerable amount of debate on a change to add a more restrictive definition of “Solicit” to the ordinance at its June 9 meeting, the Branson Board of Aldermen (Board) unanimously voted to postpone any further consideration of the change until its June 23 meeting.
According to the Staff report accompanying the proposed change, “There have been several complaints brought forth by business owners to elected officials regarding sales solicitation in the downtown area.” The report goes on to say, “This ordinance addresses those concerns in that it prohibits the ability to entice customers into a business through free or discounted items.”
Previously, in discussing the ordinance change at the Board’s public work session meeting held on May 6, Paul D. Link, Branson’s City Attorney, said, “There has been some downtown businesses that have issued some complaints recently about some vacation club sales and time shares, that kind of business, getting a lot of locations in downtown Branson and soliciting people on the sidewalk.”
At that meeting, Link went on to say that it’s not necessarily selling product on the sidewalk. He pointed out that some sales people approach people when they get out of their cars and saying, “Hey have you got your tickets yet for this weekend or I’ve got free tickets for you and enticing people to come back into the four corners of their store to sell them stuff.”
During the introduction of the ordinance at the June 9 meeting Link said, “All that’s on for tonight is a definition of the word “Solicit” to deal with those issues that have been complained about regarding the offering of free tickets or discounted goods as an enticement to get people into stores and doing it on public sidewalks.” He pointed out, “We already have a solicitation ordinance all that we are dealing with now is the definition of the word “solicit.”
The proposed change adds a definition entitled “Solicit” to Section 26-261 of the BMC. As proposed it reads, “Solicit means to initiate contact with a member of the public by the offer of any free or discounted goods or services in exchange for any action on the part of that member of the general public.”
During the public discussion on the ordinance Bill Stevenson presented an argument against not only the proposed change but the current solicitation ordinance based on constitutional commercial speech issues and stated that when they had contacted the ACLU for assistance that the ACLU had advised them that they are currently investigating the city of Branson’s ordinances regarding solicitation. He gave a copy of the ACLU letter regarding the issue and suggested that the city might want to contact them.
Downtown merchants, Grant Johnson and David King spoke about their first hand observations of how visitors to the downtown area are solicited as they attempt to walk up and down the sidewalks of the historic downtown district. Both Pat Joyce and Joel Merrifield, who operate businesses in the downtown area that, among other things, use discounted show tickets as an inducement to generate tours for times shares, expressed opinions that the personal solicitation of visitors walking the public sidewalks of downtown Branson was inappropriate.
Based on the public comments and the issues they raised, the board decided that further consideration on the matter was needed. The vote on the first reading was postponed until the Board’s June 23 meeting and the issue will be further discussed during the Boards June 16 public work session held at 10:00 a.m. in the Municipal Courtroom.
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