Shreveport, Louisiana Door-to-Door Solicitation Ban Upheld

Late last month, a federal district court in Louisiana upheld the City of Shreveport’s ban on door-to-door commercial solicitation, finding that the ban was supported by a substantial governmental interest in community safety, and further finding that the ban directly advanced the government’s interest.  The plaintiff, Vivint Louisiana, LLC, is a maker and seller of residential home security systems that markets primarily through door-to-door solicitation.  Claiming that it was unable to conduct its business in Shreveport, Vivint sued the city.  The court found that the case was governed by Central Hudson, and that the city’s prohibition on solicitation should be reviewed as a restriction on commercial—as opposed to noncommercial—speech.  The court’s treatment of the ban as a commercial speech regulation was based entirely on the language of the ban, which prohibited solicitation “for the purpose of soliciting orders for the sale of goods, wares and merchandise, or for the purpose of disposing of or peddling or hawking such goods, wares and merchandise.”

Vivint Louisiana, LLC v. City of Shreveport, slip op., No. 15-0821, 2016 WL 5723983 (W.D. La. Sep. 30, 2016).