Greetings,
The City of Huntsville continues to hear from residents who are frustrated with unwanted handbills, such as advertisements, circulars, pamphlets, handouts, and newspapers, being deposited at their homes even after they have tried to have them stopped. The City of Huntsville has an ordinance already in place to stop unwanted hand-billing. The ordinance simply requires you to follow one or both of the following methods for providing notice that you do not want to receive handbills:
A. Posting a Yard Sign. The first and perhaps the easiest way to provide notice is to post a sign on your property in a conspicuous location and that can be easily read that states “No Handbills”, “No Trespassing” or “No Solicitation”. When you do so, please keep in mind that you may also be telling solicitors that you do not want to receive any form of door-to-door solicitation.
Once the notice is posted, then no one can deposit unwanted handbills on your property. If they do, the person who actually deposited the unwanted handbill is subject to being cited for a municipal ordinance violation. Please keep in mind that the person who actually deposited the handbill will need to be identified.
B. Mailing Written Notice. The second way that can be used to provide notice, which can be in addition to or instead of posting the notice at your home, is to notify the responsible person for whom the handbills are being deposited. This could include the publisher of a newspaper or magazine, the owner of a company advertising their product or service, or a candidate for office.
The written notice must: (i) be sent by certified mail, return receipt requested, to the responsible person, (ii) state the name and contact information of the person providing the notice, (iii) state the purpose of the notice, and (iv) give the street address of the private residential premises. The notice becomes effective 14 days after receipt of the request. Please keep a copy of the certified mail return receipt and a copy of the notice you sent. Also, please keep in mind that you must renew the notice in December of each year if you want it to remain in effect for the next calendar year.
Once the written notice is in effect the responsible person you notified cannot allow or cause the unwanted handbill to be placed on your property. If they do, then they are subject to being cited for a municipal ordinance violation.
After you have followed one or both of the notice methods provided for in the ordinance and the notice is ignored, then you will need to contact this office at 256-427-5001 in order to initiate a citation process. Please be aware that should the matter need to be tried before a municipal court judge, you will also need to be available to testify at the trial of the case.
The entire text of the ordinance, City Code Section 22-39, can be read at the following link: https://goo.gl/xFyW8B . We recommend that you carefully read and understand the ordinance and call our office at 256-427-5001 if you have any questions.

The covenants and restrictions for The Reserve subdivision do not allow yard signs with the exception of "For Sale" or "For Rent" signs. You are ultimately telling us that the only way to stop this littering is to have to take the time to go to the post office and spend the money for certified mail with a return receipt requested? That is unacceptable.

I agree with Kat

According to the law, each person violating needs to be contacted....as if we know who each person is.

Why don't we just throw them back on the business's property and see how they like it

I have tried for years to keep the "free" newspaper from being thrown into the yard of my properties. I have health issues that make it difficult to pick these things up. I call the newspaper, get my call transferred, wait on hold to be told they will take care of it. Why should I have to notify the newspaper each year that they cannot throw trash on my property? Why is this my responsibility? Why do they have the right to do this? Seems they should have to ask my permission to throw it in my yard.

I emailed the below statement to Mr Wallenstein in November of 2016 and haven't had a paper thrown on my property since.

Email: DWallenstein@acsal.com

Mr Wallenstein,

Please cease and desist the throwing of Huntsville Life Circulars
which I consider to be trash onto my property located at "Enter Your Address Here",
Huntsville, Alabama 35824

Respectfully,

Enter Your Name Here
Property Owner
Enter Your Address Here
Huntsville, Alabama 35824

Thank you!! I will give it a try.

We appreciate you taking the time to reach out to us. We understand handbills can be frustrating for those in the community that do not want them. The City has an ordinance in place that addresses such issues. We have found this process to be efficient in ceasing the distribution of unwanted handbills when the guidelines set in place are followed. There is nothing more that can be done for this issue via Huntsville Connect. If you would like to discuss this further, please contact our Green Team at 256-532-5326. They would be happy to answer any questions or concerns you may have. If you’d prefer to reach out via email, you may reach our City colleagues at green.team@huntsvilleal.gov . Thank you, Your Huntsville Connect Customer Service Team

Contact your city councilman and try and have the ordinance changed! The newspaper has not been thrown in my yard since i contacted the person mentioned above if that helps anyone.