Salt Lake County Elminates Dozens of Licensing Regulations

No longer need special licenses for bowling alleys, flea markets and children's lemonade stands, among other things

The Salt Lake County Council voted 6-1 to modernize and abolish a wide variety of occupational licenses. The county's Planning and Development Division slashed around 150 pages from the business license ordinance, cutting dozens of license requirements and 45 different fees. On top of that, the new license fee schedule is revenue-neutral.

For starters, Salt Lake Valley could become a lot more fun with a lot less red tape. The council eliminated licenses for "amusement devices," operating jukeboxes, circuses, carnivals, driving ranges, mini-golf, bowling alleys (a license formerly cost $15 per lane) and arcades, which used to cost $250 a year. Salt Lake County will no longer require a special business license for rooms where people play billiards, pool, and bagatelle, as well as "backgammon, cards, checkers or other games of similar nature, or any game played with beans, buttons, dice or similar devices."

Building on this burst of common sense, the new business ordinance explicitly exempts "lemonade stands and similar operations run by children" from needing a license to work. Sadly, towns across the country have cracked down on kids' lemonade stands. Seriously. Police in Coralville, Iowa shut down a four-year-old girl's lemonade stand after just a half-hour of selling 25-cent lemonade. Three tween girls in Midway, Ga. had to close their lemonade stand since they lacked a "business license, a peddler's permit, or a food permit, all of which would have cost them $50 a day to obtain for temporary use or $180 for the year."