Lancaster County, SC Soliciting & Door-to-Door: No-Knock Registry (2026)

The county code defines a peddler in Sec. 23-70 as any person who goes house to house or place to place soliciting, selling, or taking orders for goods, wares, merchandise or services, a definition that exempts vendors of newspapers, magazines, vegetables, tobacco, other provisions and agricultural products, along with traveling salespeople selling by sample to established commercial houses. Sec. 23-71 then lists three things a peddler may not do anywhere in unincorporated Lancaster County: enter the private roads of a subdivision or the private property of a person who has posted a visible sign against peddling, soliciting or canvassing; remain on private property once a sign or door sticker prohibits it; or refuse to leave a subdivision or private property after the owner, occupant or agent tells the peddler to leave and not return.

The ordinance does not set up a county-run no-knock registry; the posted sign or the owner's verbal notice is what triggers the prohibition. Because these sections sit in Chapter 23, Article V, they bind door-to-door sellers and canvassers operating outside the City of Lancaster, Heath Springs, Kershaw and Van Wyck, all of which set their own peddler rules within their own limits. Sec. 23-72 adds a violation clause treating each day, or part of a day, that a violation continues as a separate offense, so a peddler who keeps calling on a posted subdivision can rack up multiple counts from one visit.