Catoosa County, GA Special Events & Permits: Street Fair Rules (2026)

Section 10-186 of the special events article puts control of festival and street-fair vending in the hands of the event's producer rather than requiring vendors to obtain a separate county vendor's permit. Subsection (a) allows the sale of food, merchandise, or services as part of a special event only if the vendor is approved and authorized in writing by the producer and operates within whatever conditions the producer submitted as part of the special event permit application. Subsection (b) gives the producer sole authority to allow or disallow sidewalk or street vending and to assign vendor locations, and makes it unlawful for a vendor to operate anywhere or in any manner the producer has not authorized.

Subsection (e) protects that authority by barring unauthorized vending within 25 yards of the event, starting an hour before it begins and continuing until an hour after it ends. Vendors who already hold a fixed, county-assigned vending location within Catoosa County may keep operating from that assigned spot during a special event even without the producer's separate authorization. Food vendors specifically remain subject to all Catoosa County Health Department rules regardless of event authorization, and the event producer bears responsibility for making sure the vendors under its event comply.

Because the producer, not the county, screens and authorizes vendors, an unauthorized vendor's exposure comes from the special events article's general enforcement and nuisance provisions rather than from a separate vendor license process.