Pelham council adopts temporary-event business license to ease permit costs for vendors

The Pelham City Council unanimously adopted an amendment to the city business license code on Sept. 8, 2025, creating a temporary or single-event business license for vendors and event sponsors. The ordinance sets a $25 vendor fee per event, a $150 sponsor fee per event, and establishes application deadlines and vendor reporting requirements.

Assistant City Manager Justin Smith introduced the item during a public hearing and told the council the amendment responds to a request from an event organizer that had asked the city to allow single-event licenses. "That came to us after a request that was made to us to look into that by 2 by 2 Rescue for an upcoming event at Park 124," Smith said, summarizing staff's recommendation for approval following the public hearing.

Tabitha Robinson, acting executive director of 2 by 2 Rescue, spoke in favor of the ordinance at the public hearing. Robinson said the change will make it easier and less costly for transient vendors to participate in festivals and similar events: "Up until this point...you had to apply for like a yearly business license, which obviously is quite expensive for a small business, especially for transient vendors for events like this, where they're in a different city every weekend. So we really wanted to thank Pelham for being so open to small businesses and making it much easier to have festivals here." Robinson also invited the public to the group's Barktoberfest event on Oct. 11 at Park 124.

Key provisions read into the record by city staff include: defining short-term and seasonal businesses, special events, sponsors and vendors; requiring sponsors to submit vendor lists to the finance department at least 14 days before an event; requiring vendors to submit applications and fees at least 72 hours before an event; requiring vendors to remit sales taxes following city guidelines; and allowing the mayor discretion to waive vendor license fees for civic or nonprofit events in the public interest. The ordinance also clarifies penalties and confirms that city- or school-sponsored events may be exempt from license fees while vendors still must remit sales tax.

Councilors voted to suspend the rules to allow immediate consideration and then adopted ordinance 28817 on a unanimous roll-call vote. The council and staff said the ordinance will be included in the city’s consolidated license code and that the full ordinance text is available at Pelham City Hall and online at pelhamalabama.gov.

The adoption aims to reduce administrative burdens and costs for small, transient vendors while establishing a timeline and process for vendor disclosure and tax compliance.