Davie County Sheriff’s detectives aren’t trained in selling items door to door, but they went along with some salesmen a few weeks ago just the same.
Dozens of telephone calls had come in to the E911 emergency communications system about people going door to door trying to sell cleaning supplies. Some of the reports even said the salesmen were looking into windows. The reports were from several areas.
It turns out that a van had traveled into eastern Davie and dropped off the men in various neighborhoods. Although it isn’t against county rules to sell items that way, it also isn’t against the rules for sheriff’s detectives to go along on those calls.
Chief J.D. Hartman came up with the idea and loaded up a car of detectives and found the salesmen and put a detective to walk around with each one of them.
It worked. The salesmen didn’t want any part of working with a sheriff’s detective.
That incident, and others of people soliciting money at busy intersections in eastern Davie have led the county to consider new rules for itinerant sales people. A public hearing on the proposed rules is scheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday, June 19 in the commissioner’s second floor meeting room.
Bermuda Run is also in the process of making random solicitations illegal.
The proposed county rules will require all door-to-door sales people to buy a license and register at the sheriff’s department, where they will have to have a photo ID and go through a criminal background check.
That is important, according to County Attorney Ed Vogler and Sheriff Andy Stokes.
The group soliciting at intersections – Miracle House of Hope of Charlotte – created dangerous situations and have caused problems in other areas, Vogler said.
Stokes said that the people checked in the recent incidents have criminal backgrounds, including charges of breaking, entering and larceny and drugs.
“That group allegedly has gone around to various homes … mysteriously after that those homes were broken into,” Stokes said.
The rules gives the sheriff’s department the authority to deny a license to people who don’t pass background checks. “It may keep people out of the county who we don’t want here,” Vogler said.