For-profit candy sales by kids may come to an end

Friday, Aug. 25, 2000 | 11:16 a.m.

The practice of children under 16 peddling wares door-to-door may be outlawed under a new policy being considered by Nevada Labor Commissioner Terry Johnson.

During a public hearing Thursday at the Sawyer State Office Building, Johnson listened while people argued passionately over the nonprofit vs. for-profit factions of the child candy-selling industry.

Johnson promised to consider a ban on children under 16 being "employed for this kind of work." He said local governments may want to institute their own regulations.

Door-to-door candy selling has come under scrutiny because of reports that children are being put in unsafe situations.

Johnson has viewed a news videotape showing what appears to be a child standing in front of a bar selling candy. Just recently, he said, he was approached by a child selling candy at a supermarket with no supervisor standing by. Both were working for for-profit businesses, he said.

Should Johnson outlaw the hiring of children under age 16 to sell candy, it would not affect the Girl Scouts, churches, schools and other nonprofit groups from using children in door-to-door sales because the kids are volunteers, not employees.

Those who support the for-profit groups say that is unfair because such regulatory action would in effect put the for-profits out of business and give all of the candy market to the nonprofit groups.

"It is discrimination and prejudice," said Steve Owenbey, who told Johnson he ran a youth candy-selling operation in Colorado for 16 years. "There are some who believe that only nonprofits should be allowed to sell door to door. They are trying to make this income opportunity sound dirty."

Owenbey said that a number of the children who do this type of work come from poor families and use the money they earn from selling candy to buy clothing for school or help their families make ends meet.

But that very argument riles Bob Femenella, a marriage and family therapist .

When it comes to giving "$6 for a bar of candy to a youngster who is obviously marketing his own poverty, I am filled with resentment," Femenella said. "My resentment is toward those who hire the children because they are not marketing candy, they are marketing poverty.

"They are using the poor child to play on our feelings of good will ... It also plays on our fears that if the child is not selling candy he would be ripping off our houses."

Other critics say children often misrepresent the company for which they work by making it appear as though it is a nonprofit organization.

Kent Divich, a real estate salesman, said, "people would not pay a 600 percent markup for candy if they knew it was going to a for-profit business."

North Las Vegas Police Crime Prevention Manager Charlotte Salyer said her office fields hundreds of calls about juveniles selling candy door to door and "to this day I have never received a positive call."

Arlene Moscoso, who said she supervised children in for-profit candy sales for 10 years, said children learn salesmanship and how to deal with the public, and "some become sales people and managers. The kids gain self-esteem."