Greenville County, SC Public Conduct: Aggressive Panhandling (2026)

C. Code Title 6, Chapter 29, no person may stand on a highway or street to solicit employment, business or contributions from the occupant of a passing vehicle anywhere in the unincorporated area. The ban falls on individual panhandlers and unlicensed solicitors alike; the only carve-out covers rescue squads, volunteer fire departments and charitable or eleemosynary organizations, and even those groups must first obtain a permit from the Greenville County Sheriff's Office and keep it on hand at the solicitation site. The Sheriff's Office can attach reasonable conditions to protect the safety of motorists, pedestrians and the solicitors themselves and to keep traffic moving, and it cannot issue more than two permits to the same organization in a calendar year.

m. The Sheriff's Office charges $50 to cover the administrative cost of issuing each permit. Anyone who solicits from motorists without meeting these conditions, or who solicits outside the permitted hours, commits a misdemeanor punishable within the jurisdictional limits of magistrate's court, and each day the violation continues counts as a separate offense. The ordinance traces to Ord. 3084, passed 3-17-1998, and was amended by Ord. 3476 in 2001. Because the rule targets solicitation from vehicle occupants on the traveled roadway, it reaches classic roadside panhandling at intersections and highway ramps, while other forms of solicitation are addressed, if at all, under separate county or state provisions.