Elyria, OH Special Events & Permits: Street Fair Rules (2026)

Chapter 713 of the Elyria Codified Ordinances, Circuses and Carnivals, treats the street fair differently from every other traveling show. Section 713.04 is a flat bar: no officer of the City can grant a permit or license to any lodge, order or secret society for a street fair or carnival on the streets of the City, and no such license or permission can go to a carnival or street fair company or to any other person to hold one in the public streets. The ban is not tied to a fee, a date or a sponsor, so a civic group gets the same answer as a commercial midway operator.

Carnivals and similar shows are licensed separately under § 713.01. No person can conduct, stage or give a circus, menagerie, carnival, sideshow, musical or minstrel entertainment, or exhibition of monsters or freaks of nature, for which money or reward is demanded or received, without first obtaining a license from the Mayor. Section 713.02 sets the fee at $40.00 for the first day and $20.00 for each day after that, with a ceiling of $150.00 in any one week.

Section 713.03 gives the Mayor discretion to grant a license without cost for not more than six consecutive days when all of the performances are fostered and supervised by civic interests of the City and a substantial part of the funds is spent for charitable or civic purposes. Section 713.04 separately closes the public streets to any carnival or street fair license.

This chapter says nothing about booth vendors or food trucks. Its subject is carnivals, shows and the street fair ban, all under the authority of the Elyria City Council in Lorain County, Ohio.