Cocoa, FL Soliciting & Door-to-Door: Solicitor Permits (2026)

City Code Section 14-8 makes registration mandatory for each solicitor going from house to house or place to place in the city soliciting business, language broad enough to reach magazine and periodical sellers by name. Before knocking on a single door, the solicitor must register with the chief of police and receive a registration and identification card that both the police chief and the city clerk sign. 00 per solicitor, and the ordinance is explicit that this charge sits on top of, not instead of, whatever local business tax the person's underlying trade already requires; Section 12-20(36) sets the separate occupational license fee for solicitors that the code cross-references.

The section originated at Code 1963 Section 16-15 and was updated twice, by Ordinance No. 5-91, Section 2, adopted April 9, 1991, and by Ordinance No. 16-2008, Section 6, adopted July 22, 2008, the amendment that folded in the local business tax cross-reference using that terminology. Chapter 14, Article I places this rule among the city's general offenses provisions, so a solicitor working without the police-issued card is violating a standing city ordinance, not merely failing an administrative step. Because Section 14-8 states no penalty of its own, enforcement falls back on the Code's general penalty at Section 1-8, which authorizes a fine of up to $500, up to 90 days in jail, or both, with continuing violations treated as a separate offense each day they persist.