Santa Maria, CA Soliciting & Door-to-Door: No-Knock Registry (2026)

Santa Maria's peddler and solicitor sign law traces to the city's Prior Code (§ 17-11) and was carried forward unchanged into the current Municipal Code as Chapter 4-14. The chapter creates three separate offenses tied to three different sign wordings a resident may post at a home, apartment or flat: Section 4-14.01 bars any peddler from knocking or ringing a bell where a "No Peddler" sign is displayed; Section 4-14.02 bars any solicitor from doing the same where a "No Solicitors" sign is posted; and Section 4-14.03 covers the combined "No Peddlers or Solicitors" sign or "words of similar import." Each section defines the violation the same way: a seller, or person "pretending to sell," offering for sale, demonstrating, or taking or soliciting orders for goods, wares or merchandise "of any kind or character," may not ring the bell, knock, or otherwise attempt to gain admittance once the qualifying sign is "painted or affixed or exposed to public view." Section 4-14.04 carves out a narrow exception: the chapter does not apply to a peddler or solicitor who knocks or rings "at the invitation or with the consent of some member of the household." These sign provisions regulate door-to-door contact only; they do not require peddlers or solicitors to register with the City before working residential streets, though separate Title 4 licensing chapters require a $500 annual hawker/peddler license (Section 4-3.396) or a fingerprinted solicitor/canvasser license (Section 4-3.3124) for the underlying business activity. Because Chapter 4-14 carries no penalty clause of its own, a violation falls under the Code's general misdemeanor provision.