Code of Ordinances

Appli­ca­tions for seller’s per­mits shall be made to the Coun­ty Clerk annu­al­ly on or after April 1^st of the year for which the per­mit is issued and the fil­ing peri­od shall close on April 15^th of such year unless extend­ed by action of the Coun­ty Board.  Appli­ca­tions shall be signed by the retail sell­er, if an indi­vid­ual, or by the duly autho­rized offi­cer, if an asso­ci­a­tion or cor­po­ra­tion.  It is unlaw­ful for a fire­works man­u­fac­tur­er, whole­saler or sup­pli­er to make appli­ca­tion for or to obtain a retail sales per­mit on behalf of any retail­er.  Seller’s per­mits for the sale of those fire­works allowed pur­suant to Sec­tion 7–5‑4 of this Arti­cle shall be issued only to appli­cants meet­ing the fol­low­ing conditions:

(A) The retail­er or per­son in charge and respon­si­ble for the retail oper­a­tion shall be twen­­ty-one (21) years of age or old­er, of good moral char­ac­ter and of demon­strat­ed responsibility.

(B) The appli­cant shall have a valid and cur­rent license issued by the State of Illi­nois autho­riz­ing the hold­er to engage in the retail sale of fire­works.  (See 425 ILCS 35)

(C) The appli­cant shall own or have the right to pos­sess a tem­po­rary fire­works stand com­ply­ing with the require­ments of this Article.

(D) The appli­cant shall pro­cure and main­tain a pol­i­cy or poli­cies of pub­lic lia­bil­i­ty and prop­er­ty dam­age insur­ance issued by a com­pa­ny or com­pa­nies autho­rized to do busi­ness in the State of Illi­nois in the fol­low­ing min­i­mum amounts: Five Hun­dred Thou­sand Dol­lars ($500,000.00) for injuries to any one per­son in one acci­dent or occur­rence; One Mil­lion Dol­lars ($1,000,000.00) for injuries to two or more per­sons in any one acci­dent or occur­rence; Five Hun­dred Thou­sand Dol­lars ($500,000.00) for dam­age to prop­er­ty in any one acci­dent or occur­rence; One Mil­lion Dol­lars ($1,000,000.00) com­bined sin­gle lim­it for any one acci­dent or occur­rence.  In addi­tion, the Coun­ty is to be an addi­tion­al named insured and the pol­i­cy shall pro­vide for the imme­di­ate noti­fi­ca­tion of the Coun­ty by the insur­er of any can­cel­la­tion of any policy.

(E) The per­mit holder’s loca­tion or place of busi­ness shall be only in those areas or zones with­in the Coun­ty where com­mer­cial activ­i­ties are autho­rized under applic­a­ble zon­ing law; pro­vid­ed, that the sale of those fire­works autho­rized by Sec­tion 7–5‑5 of this Arti­cle shall not be deemed an enlarge­ment of an exist­ing non­con­form­ing use.

(F) The appli­cant shall post with the Coun­ty a per­for­mance bond or a cash deposit in an amount not less than Two Hun­dred Dol­lars ($200.00) con­di­tioned upon the prompt removal of the tem­po­rary fire­works stand and the clean­ing up of all debris from the site of the stand, which deposit shall be returned to the appli­cant only in the event that the appli­cant removes the tem­po­rary stand and cleans up all debris to the sat­is­fac­tion of the Coun­ty.  In the event the appli­cant fails to do so, the per­for­mance bond or cash deposit shall be for­feit­ed.  In no event shall the appli­cant be enti­tled to the return of the per­for­mance bond or cash deposit if he or she has failed to remove the stand and clean up all debris by the tenth (10^th) of July fol­low­ing the sales period.

(G) No seller’s per­mit shall be issued for a loca­tion which fails to meet the cri­te­ria set forth in Sec­tion 7–5‑11 of this Arti­cle, includ­ing the min­i­mum stand sep­a­ra­tion require­ment.  When nec­es­sary, in order to deter­mine pri­or­i­ty as to a pro­posed loca­tion, the ear­li­est date and time of fil­ing of an appli­ca­tion for a seller’s per­mit with the Coun­ty Clerk shall be controlling.