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

Watsonville Municipal Code § 5-14.10 sets the general conditions every traveling merchant permittee carries, and two of them work as the city's no-knock rules. Subsection (a) bars business activity from 8:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m. except upon invitation of the occupant or business owner. Subsection (b) bars soliciting or attempting to solicit on any premise where a notice or sign is clearly posted prohibiting solicitations or indicating the owner or occupant desire not to be solicited. Chapter 5-14 works through a posted sign rather than a list: the tool a resident in the City of Watsonville has is the sign on the door.

The chapter reaches anyone who sells or exhibits goods or services door-to-door, street-to-street or on a temporary or intermittent basis away from a fixed place of business (§ 5-14.02(d)), and it names solicitors, peddlers, hawkers and door-to-door salesmen. Each person needs a permit from the Chief of Police (§§ 5-14.01, 5-14.03), with written notice of decision within fifteen (15) days of a complete application (§ 5-14.04). Permits expire automatically on June 30th of each year (§ 5-14.05). The permittee must keep a valid City of Watsonville Business License (§ 5-14.10(e)) and must show the permit when a law enforcement officer asks, or when any citizen the permittee is selling or soliciting to asks (§ 5-14.10(d)).

Other limits stack on top. Section 5-14.07 keeps permittees 500 feet from the perimeter of any public park and, between 7:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. on school days, from schools. Section 5-14.09 makes it unlawful to solicit directly to patrons at a fixed place of business without the owner or operator's authorization. Section 5-14.10(m) limits peddling to five (5) minutes in a single location and requires relocating a minimum of 200 feet. The exceptions in § 5-14.13 cover people invited to call, newspaper sellers, candidate and ballot-initiative canvassers, fundraisers for a local school, civic or non-profit corporation within a seven (7) mile radius of the City limits, and religious solicitation.