Ask any salesman and you will hear that America is a nation of salesmen.

        Well, maybe.

        Sometimes I think we wished it weren't, at least when we think of telephone solicitors and door-to-door hawkers.

        Heading into the spring, look for more knocks on the door: solicitors selling candy, toys, magazines, tickets, furniture, frozen food, security systems, you name it.

        Municipalities and townships struggle to get a balanced regulation to permit free trade, yet prohibit aggressive tactics and invasion of privacy.

        Some examples:

        Anderson Township tries to regulatedoor-to-door sales through licensing and registrations. Solicitors are required to get a $25 license, good for three months, and can operate until 9 p.m.

        Operating without the license is a minor misdemeanor and the solicitor can get a $100 ticket.

        The city of Norwood will issue a $25 door-to-door sales license for three months, but it restricts operation from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., and will slap violators with a fourth-degree misdemeanor, which can draw a $250 fine and 30 days in jail.

        Springfield Township is a little more lenient. It will issue a $25 door-to-door sales license for three months with a 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. restriction. Anyone caught operating without the license will be asked to get one or may be asked to leave the township.

        But listen up, door-to-door solicitors: Covington doesn't like you.

        “We don't even want them and we will not issue them a license,” said Darryl Strong, operations manager for the Covington Finance Department. “We will issue a stationary solicitor's license for $250 for 120 days. But they have to operate within the area zoned for that purpose.”

        Peddlers, door-to-door solicitors, street and transient vendors, itinerant merchants and hawkers can't even try to peddle their wares in Bedford Heights in Cuyahoga County, near Cleveland, not even by telephone, unless they have been invited or requested.

        They have been banned there since 1976.

        You haven't heard the last of Dr. Milton Hinton's name in connection with the NAACP. Dr. Hinton, who headed the Cincinnati branch for four years, did not run again last year.

        Norma Holt Davis, president of the branch, said the Milton Hinton Future Leadership Scholarships will be available this year. Eight scholarships are valued at $2,500 each.

        Applicants must be one or more of the following:

        • African-American graduating seniors enrolled in a Hamilton County high school.

        • African-American college students who are residents of Hamilton County.

        • African-American college students enrolled in an undergraduate program at an accredited two- or four-year college or university in Hamilton County.

        • African-American students who are members of either the Cincinnati Branch NAACP, Cincinnati Branch Council or Cincinnati Branch NAACP College Chapter.

        “This is a historic moment for the Cincinnati Branch NAACP,” said Moss White, chairman of the scholarship committee. “The NAACP expects a return on our investment and we are supremely confident that it will yield great dividends.”

        For information, call Moss White at 281-1900.

       Allen Howard's column runs on Saturdays. Call: 768-8362. Mail: The Cincinnati Enquirer, 312 Elm St., Cincinnati, OH 45202.

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