Hialeah, FL Public Conduct: Aggressive Panhandling (2026)

Hialeah Code of Ordinances Sec. 18-340 makes it "unlawful or illegal and prohibited" for any person or organization, whether for-profit or not, to solicit money, funds, or anything of value at street corners or intersections anywhere in the city. The same section separately prohibits soliciting chattels or anything of value, including money or personal property, door-to-door in any residential section of the city. There is one carve-out: a twice-per-year exception for organizations whose members are trained in public health, safety, first aid and lifesaving techniques, whose individual members are at least 18 years old, and who sign a hold-harmless agreement in favor of the city before collecting at intersections.

The section traces back to Code 1960 Sec. 25-5 and was last amended by Ordinance No. 82-161 in November 1982. It sits in Article VI, Division 3 (Solicitors) alongside Sec. 18-336, which separately requires anyone soliciting for veteran purposes to be a duly authorized representative of a nationally chartered veterans' organization, and Sec. 18-339, which requires charitable organizations to file fund-drive details with the city clerk and obtain city council approval before soliciting. A related clause, Sec. 18-337(c), treats a licensed peddler's practice of leaving an item's price to "the charity and discretion of the public" as panhandling and a Code violation, but that provision governs licensed vendors, not general street solicitation. Together these sections give Hialeah police a citywide tool against intersection panhandling and unsolicited residential canvassing, independent of any state trespass statute.