§ 40-12-174 — Transient Vendors and Peddlers

(a) Each person travelling on an animal or using a vehicle other than a motor vehicle, doing business as a transient vendor or peddler as defined in this section, displaying, selling or offering to sell any goods, wares, or merchandise, other than to a merchant for resale, shall pay a privilege license tax to the State of Alabama of $15 and $5 for the county in each county in which such transient vendor or peddler does business for each vehicle.
(b) Each itinerant vendor or peddler of merchandise, other than tobacco products, medicines or household remedies or liquified petroleum products, but including persons, firms, corporations, partnerships, or cooperatives whose principal business is selling and distributing milk and dairy products, who operates on foot or uses a vehicle solely for the purpose of transporting merchandise from house to house or place to place but who does not use such vehicle for the display of merchandise or as a rolling store and who does not permit purchasers to enter said vehicle for the purpose of purchasing merchandise shall pay an annual license tax of $20 to the state and $10 to the county in each county in which he does business; and the payment of one state license shall authorize such persons, firms, corporations, partnerships, or cooperatives to engage in such business in any county in the state upon the payment of a county license of $10 to each county in which said persons, firms, corporations, partnerships, or cooperatives do business.
(c) Each person using a motor vehicle, doing business as a transient vendor or peddler as defined in this section displaying, selling, or offering to sell any goods, wares, or merchandise of whatever nature at retail shall pay to the state in order to engage in such business the following license taxes: Upon one motor vehicle, the annual license for each such motor vehicle, not in excess of one so used, shall be $100; upon two motor vehicles or more, but not to exceed three, the annual license fee for each such additional motor vehicle shall be $130; upon more than three motor vehicles, but not to exceed six, the annual license fee for each such additional motor vehicle shall be $150; upon each motor vehicle in excess of six, for each such additional motor vehicle, $200. In addition to the above, there is levied a license tax of $50 for the state and a county license tax of $50 in each additional county in which said business is conducted. Rolling stores which are controlled or held with others by stock ownership of 25 percent or ultimately controlled or directed by one management or association of ultimate management shall be deemed for the purpose of this section as being owned by the same person.
(d) Each person going from person to person, place to place, town to town, selling, or giving away medicine, salves, ointments, lotions, or other goods, wares, or, merchandise by exhibitions, shows, performances, or other entertainment, whether sold for himself or another, in each county where such sales or gifts are made shall pay a license tax of $100.
(e) When used in this section, the words “transient vendor or peddler” shall be held to include any person embraced in any of the following classifications:
(1) All persons commonly and generally termed “peddlers” and falling within the usual and commonly understood definition of “peddler”; or
(2) All persons acting for themselves or as an agent, employee, or salesman, or in any capacity for another whether as owner, bailee, or other custodian of goods, wares, and merchandise, going from person to person, house to house, or place to place and selling or offering to sell, or consigning or offering to consign, other than to a retail merchant for resale, goods, wares, and merchandise; or
(3) All persons who do not keep a regular place of business open at all times in regular business hours at the same place, going from person to person, house to house, place to place or town to town, and selling or offering for sale, other than to a retail merchant, goods, wares, and merchandise which they carry with them and who deliver the same at the time of or immediately after the sale; or
(4) All persons who go from person to person, house to house, place to place, soliciting orders, other than from a retail merchant for resale, by exhibiting samples or taking orders and thereafter making delivery of the goods or filling the order, without carrying or sending the order to the permanent place of business.
(f) This section shall not apply to a person or to any member of his immediate household selling or offering to sell dairy, poultry or farm products raised, produced or grown by himself, or the immediate members of his household, or such products preserved, bottled or canned by himself, or the immediate members of his household, or to persons peddling wood, charcoal, fruit, or vegetables; or to blind persons or persons physically disabled to the extent of 30 percent, such disability to be certified to by a reputable physician and the local license inspector, operating other than a rolling store, or to peddlers of poultry and eggs, or to persons selling fish, shrimp, crabs or other seafoods. These and none other shall be exempt from the payment of the license tax levied by this section.
(g) The payment of the privilege license tax required by this section shall not authorize any transient vendor or peddler to sell any goods, wares, or merchandise for which a higher or specific license is required without the payment of such license in addition to the license herein levied or to sell any goods, wares, or merchandise that are by law required to be sold at a fixed location, except upon the payment of the maximum license tax levied under the section or sections of this chapter for the sale of merchandise at a fixed location. This section shall not apply to transient dealers of bottled soft drinks when sold or distributed from a bottling plant which has paid the privilege license tax imposed by Section 40-12-65.

Legislative History

(Acts 1935, No. 194, p. 256; Acts 1936-37, Ex. Sess., No. 230, p. 277; Code 1940, T. 51, §611; Acts 1953, No. 208, p. 276; Acts 1961, Ex. Sess., No. 241, p. 2254; Acts 1969, No. 543, p. 1021.)