East Williston to allow pest control solicitation

Tom McCarthy
Residents looking to opt out of Aptive solicitation can receive "No Solicitation" from East Williston Village Hall. (Photo courtesy of Marie Hausner)

The village of East Williston has decided to allow a company to solicit in the village under special rules without amending its code for now.

“There is no code change at this time,” Mayor Bonnie Parente said. “ But we may have to revisit our code.”

East Williston is one of many communities on the North Shore of Long Island reevaluating their solicitation codes after legal action in a nearby village.

Aptive Environmental, a Utah-based pest control company dependent on door-to-door solicitation, sued the Village of Floral Park in August 2018, after the village did not amend its code preventing commercial solicitation. Aptive’s legal counsel called the solicitation ban a “flagrant violation of the First and 14th Amendments,” according to court records.

In its settlement, Floral Park agreed to pay $15,000. The village has since changed its code from a complete ban on commercial solicitation to requiring soliciting companies to provide detailed information in order to obtain a license.

Parente said the legal counsel for Aptive planned on pursuing litigation against East Williston as well. Village code currently allows solicitation after the company receives a permit from the village hall. “Instead of sitting back” and entering a lawsuit, Parente said the village decided to reach a resolution allowing solicitation without changing the village code.

Jeremy Fielding, an attorney from Lynn Pinker Coxx Hurst representing Aptive Environmental, said East Williston’s village code on solicitation requires a $5,000 bond with a permit. “We characterize that as a ban,” he said.

Fielding said solicitation in the village was also limited on weekdays until 5 p.m. He said the major argument against the curfew is that it makes it difficult to market services to average working families as many aren’t home from work yet by that time.

East Williston village hall issued a July 24 mail notice to residents saying that solicitation by Aptive in East Williston would be allowed Monday to Saturday, holidays included, from 10 a.m. until dusk.

Under the terms of the resolution, those who object to solicitation have two options. First, the village hall is beginning to offer “No Solicitation” signs to be posted near one’s front door. They will be available within two weeks of the mail notice.

If this does not work, then a resident can email Village Clerk Marie Hausner at Ewillistonclerk@yahoo.com with a subject heading “No solicitation” including one’s name, address and phone number to be part of a list of houses Aptive has agreed not to solicit its services to.

Village hall said that there is no definite date in which solicitation will begin.

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