Vacuum sellers win case

OREM — A federal court sided Tuesday with eight people arrested in Pleasant Grove for selling Kirby vacuum cleaners door-to-door without a license.

The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver upheld an earlier ruling by U.S. District Judge Tena Campbell that provided a preliminary injunction against two parts of Pleasant Grove's ordinance regarding door-to-door sales.

The decision was the third in a large fight brewing over the issue of commercial speech in Utah. The Kaysville law firm that represents the eight salespeople arrested in Pleasant Grove also has filed lawsuits against Salt Lake County and 22 other Utah cities and towns from Logan to St. George.

The suits claim the cities have created ordinances that are unconstitutional, infringing the commercial speech rights of door-to-door salespeople.

Campbell issued the preliminary injunction that prohibited Pleasant Grove from enforcing two provisions of its ordinance. One required companies that hire salespeople to post a $1,000 bond for each salesman or saleswoman. The other required that each salesperson submit to fingerprinting before he or she could be given a license to sell within the city.

The city's ordinance also requires a $100 annual fee for each salesperson, but until the day Campbell issued the preliminary injunction, the city was enforcing it as a $100 weekly fee or $5,200 a year. The city told the court it had misinterpreted the ordinance.

Pleasant Grove officials referred all questions to city attorney Christine Petersen, who did not immediately return a message left Wednesday afternoon.

However, Petersen testified before Campbell and said the bond was meant to protect residents from distributors who commit fraud by taking payments without ever delivering products.

James Merrell, attorney for the salespeople, said distributors who sell Kirby vacuums always leave the machines with customers at the time they pay.

The circuit court's ruling also was based on the fact Pleasant Grove has no way for residents to make a claim on the bond if a salesperson did take a resident's money without delivering a product.

Petersen told Campbell that fingerprinting would deter salespeople from committing future crimes.

"If I was a salesperson and going door-to-door and I knew that somebody can identify me by my fingerprints," Petersen said, "obviously I would be less likely to commit a crime in the neighborhood and leave my fingerprints."