The Sunset Hills Board of Aldermen unanimously passed an ordinance on soliciting at its May 12 meeting. The new legislation clarifies where solicitors can stand, preventing them from standing in the roadway and designating solicitation for areas with “pedestrian accommodations.”

The ordinance states that Sunset Hills has seen “an increase in solicitation on roadways of the city,” which partially inspired this action. The action was also inspired by a similar ordinance passing in the city of Des Peres.

“The Board of Aldermen finds it in the best interest of the City to enact a new section to prohibit solicitation within roadways of the City without pedestrian accommodations to protect pedestrians and motorists,” the Sunset Hills ordinance states.

“Areas with pedestrian accommodations” includes sidewalks and the shoulders of roads, but does not include medians. The legislation was designed to keep solicitors from standing on medians or in the lanes of traffic. Solicitors are only allowed to enter the roadway briefly if they are approaching a parked vehicle adjacent to the sidewalk the solicitor is on.

“The point of this is to remove where there is no sidewalk and there really is a danger for someone to be approaching cars, but really leaving open the ample spaces,” city attorney Erin Seele said. “It really isn’t allowed unless there is a sidewalk.”

City Administrator Brittany Gillett added that solicitors are not allowed to walk around a parked vehicle into the roadway to solicit from other vehicles. For instance, if there were two lanes of stopped traffic, a solicitor would only be able to approach stopped cars in the lane adjacent to them — they would not be able to walk through the cars to get to the other lane.

At the county level, District 6 Councilman Mike Archer (R-Oakville) is spearheading an effort to prohibit individuals from soliciting donations on St. Louis County roadways. The legislation has not yet been passed by the County Council, though its drafting began in September.