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Hall commission keeps door-to-door sales illegal in county
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Commissioner Bobby Banks asked Public Works Director Ken Rearden to give the commission a presentation on providing water to the Belmont Community at the Thursday board meeting.

The community gets its water from wells, which have run dry over the last few months.

Banks said water lines can now be installed for much less than original estimates.

"We have almost 1970s prices on this," Public Works Director Ken Rearden said.

The Hall County Board of Commissioners voted to extend the ban on door-to-door sales for an additional year at Monday’s work session.

That type of business was banned for six months after the county received a large number of complaints from residents about aggressive salespeople.

"We had tons of complaints from the public, with people coming and more or less just forcing their way into the house," said Susan Rector, business license director. "It caused the homeowner to feel very threatened and intimidated."

The commission has not yet voted on a new ordinance to oversee door-to-door sales, so the ban will be extended.

"We were going to review it and create an ordinance for it, but we’ve had so many other issues going on that we have not had time to get that done," Rector said.

Commission Chairman Tom Oliver said many elderly people have been bothered by salespeople offering everything from roof repairs to vacuum cleaners.

"That’s not the way this county needs to conduct business," Oliver said.

Rector said in the future, she will work with the commission to draft an ordinance with tougher restrictions on door-to-door sales.

"It will be heavily regulated," Rector said. "There will be certain days and times it can be done."

Rector said complaints peaked last winter.

"Anytime we have bad weather we have an influx of all these people coming in from out of town and out of state trying to do bids on home repair work," Rector said. "We just had a lot of problems with people not doing what they say they were going to."