(a) "Itinerant vendor" means and includes all persons who engage or conduct within the City, either in one locality or in travelling from place to place, a temporary or transient business of selling goods, wares and merchandise; and who, for the purpose of carrying on such business, use, lease or occupy either in whole or in part, a room, building or other structure, or who use, lease or occupy for such purposes a room in any hotel or lodging house for the exhibition and sale of such goods, wares and merchandise. The person so engaged shall not be relieved from the provisions of this section by reason of association temporarily with any local dealer, trader, merchant or auctioneer, or by conducting such temporary or transient business in connection with or as part of this business of, or in the name of, any local dealer, trader, merchant or auctioneer. The provisions of this section shall not apply to sales made to persons by commercial travellers or selling agents in the usual course of business, nor to bona fide sales of goods, wares or merchandise by sample for future delivery; nor to hawkers or peddlers in the streets, roads, or highways, from packs or vehicles; nor to persons selling meat or products of the farm, garden or dairy; nor to any sales of goods, wares or merchandise on the grounds of any agriculture association during the continuance of any fair held by such association; nor to any sales by societies acting for charitable, religious, or benevolent purposes; nor to judicial sales directed by law or under the order of any court; nor to the sales of the common necessities of life in any public market place.
(b) No itinerant vendor shall advertise, represent or hold forth a sale of goods, wares or merchandise as a bankrupt, insolvent, assignee, trustee, estate, executor, administrator, receiver, attorney, manufacturer's wholesale or closing-out sale, or a sale of any goods damaged by smoke, fire, water or otherwise, unless before so doing he shall state in writing, under oath, to the City Recorder at the time he makes application for a license all the facts relating to the reason and character of such special sale as advertised, held forth or represented, including a statement of the names of the persons from whom such goods, wares or merchandise were purchased and the date of the delivery of the same to the person applying for a license; the place, if any, where such goods, wares or merchandise were previously exposed for sale, and such details as are necessary to exactly locate and fully identify all such goods, wares and merchandise proposed to be sold. Such itinerant vendor shall also include in such statement the name and residence of the owner in whose interest the business is conducted. The statement shall be kept on file in the office of the City Recorder and a record shall be kept by the City Recorder of all such statements, in convenient form and open to public inspection.
(c) Every itinerant vendor desiring to do business within the City shall deposit with the City Recorder the sum of five hundred dollars ($500.00) as a special deposit, before a license shall be issued to him, as hereinafter provided, authorizing him to do business in the City in conformity with the provisions of this article. Such deposit shall be held by the City Recorder for a period of thirty days after such itinerant vendor ceases to do business within the City, and after satisfying all claims which may be made against him. The City Recorder shall return such deposit or such portion thereof as remains in his hands to such itinerant vendor who deposited the same should there be no valid claims.
(d) The deposits so made with the City Recorder shall be subject to attachment and execution on behalf of creditors whose claims arise in connection with the business conducted within the City, and to the payment of fines and penalties incurred by such itinerant vendor in violation of this article as well as for any unpaid taxes assessed, laid or charged, by any proper authorities, upon such goods, wares and merchandise. Such deposit or any remaining portion thereof shall not be paid to such itinerant vendor until all outstanding claims or notices of claims, presented within thirty days after he ceases to do business, are settled in full.
(e) The annual license fee to carry on the business of itinerant vendor shall be five hundred dollars ($500.00) and no such license shall be issued or such license tax assessed for any period of less than one year.
(f) Every itinerant vendor who sells or exhibits for sale, at public or private sale, any goods, wares or merchandise without first obtaining a license therefor, and in all other respects complying with the provisions of this article, or who makes any false statement in connection with obtaining such license or who fails to comply with the requirements of any of the sections of this article, and every person, whether principal or agent, who, by circular, handbill, newspaper or any other manner advertises such sale, herein described, before proper licenses are issued to the vendor, and before he has complied with the provisions of this article, shall be guilty of a violation of this article and shall be punished accordingly.
(1972 Code §11-2-8)