Appeals court revives Outer Banks entrepreneur’s fight to earn a living

Raleigh, North Carolina; June 17, 2026: A mobile art gallery owner won an appellate victory Wednesday after the North Carolina Court of Appeals reversed a lower court’s dismissal of her constitutional challenge to a Kill Devil Hills ordinance. The ordinance restricts itinerant vendors from operating during the area’s extended summer season. Ami Hill alleges the ordinance forces vendors like her to either donate 100% of their proceeds to charity or obtain special approval from the Town’s Board of Commissioners — which has total discretion to grant or deny permits — if they want to operate between May 1 and September 30.

“No town can condition an entrepreneur’s right to operate on either surrendering their profits or begging for permission from a board that decides based on its whim,” said Donna Matias, an attorney with Pacific Legal Foundation. “North Carolina’s constitution protects the right to the fruits of one’s labor, and that includes Ami Hill’s.”

Hill opened a brick-and-mortar gallery in Kitty Hawk in 2017, but the pandemic forced it to close in 2020. She pivoted, refurbishing a school bus into a mobile art gallery and launching a pop-up showcase for local artists. When she sought a permit to operate in Kill Devil Hills during the summer season, the Town rejected her application, citing the ordinance requiring her and the other local artist vendors to donate the entirety of their profits. The only other route to operating during that season was by permission from the Board of Commissioners, which, the Town admits, makes decisions without any uniform criteria to guide them. One member of the Board, former Mayor Ben Sproul, even suggested that the application might have passed muster if Ami had included a puppet show as part of the event.

Ami filed a constitutional challenge in 2022, arguing the ordinance violates the North Carolina Constitution’s Fruits of Their Own Labor clause, Law of the Land clause, and Equal Protection clause. The trial court dismissed the case without reaching the merits.

The Court of Appeals reversed on all three grounds, holding that constitutional claims do not require exhaustion of administrative remedies, that the sale of a single business asset does not moot an active business’ claims, and that an ordinance’s enabling statute cannot shield the ordinance from constitutional review. The case now returns to the trial court for consideration on the merits.

Pacific Legal Foundation represents Hill free of charge. The case is Ami Hill and Muse Originals LLC v. Town of Kill Devil Hills et al.