A door-to-door seller in Plymouth County is a hawker and pedler under MGL c.101 §13 and needs the state license, plus most towns require a separate local solicitor permit and a police background check before canvassing.
State law, MGL c.101 §13, defines a hawker and pedler as anyone going place to place selling goods, which covers door-to-door sellers on foot. Selling that way requires the state hawker and pedler license under c.101 §22. On top of the state license, nearly every Plymouth County town has adopted a local solicitor or canvasser bylaw requiring registration with the police department, photo identification badges, and a criminal background check before knocking on doors. Charitable and political canvassers are treated differently and generally cannot be barred, but commercial solicitors must carry both credentials.
Soliciting without the state license or the required town permit lets police order the canvasser to stop, issue a fine under the local bylaw, and pursue charges under c.101.
Other ordinances people look up for this city. Green dot = verified primary-source excerpt.
Plymouth County, MA
No Plymouth County or state law limits holiday lights, inflatables, or yard displays. Towns rarely regulate seasonal decorations at all, and where a bylaw to...
Plymouth County, MA
No Plymouth County rule governs garage-sale signs; towns handle them through local sign bylaws. On your own lawn a yard-sale sign is generally fine, but a si...
Plymouth County, MA
Towns, not Plymouth County, regulate signs, through zoning bylaws authorized by MGL c.40A. Those bylaws must stay content-neutral: after Reed v. Town of Gilb...
Plymouth County, MA
Rental registration and inspection are local powers, not county ones. The State Sanitary Code under MGL c.111 §127A lets each town's board of health enforce ...
Plymouth County, MA
Massachusetts has no statewide just-cause eviction law, and no Plymouth County town can add one. A landlord ends a tenancy at will with 30 days' written noti...
Plymouth County, MA
Rent control is illegal across every Plymouth County community. Massachusetts voters banned it in 1994 through Question 9, now codified as MGL c.40P §4: no c...
See how Plymouth County's solicitor permits rules stack up against other locations.
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