Request By:
Hon. Elmer Cunnagin, Jr.
Laurel County Attorney
Office of County Attorney
London. Kentucky 40741
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
The statutes relating to permits to operate a place of entertainment are involved in your request for an opinion.
Specifically you ask whether such statutes, KRS 231.010 and 231.020, apply where a certain individual or corporation will operate outside the corporate limits of London, Laurel County, a health spa, which business provides exercise classes, weight lifting, judo lessons and other forms of exercise?
KRS 231.010 defines a place of entertainment which is subject to the permit to be issued a qualified applicant by the county judge/executive
"As used in this chapter, 'place of entertainment' means a roadhouse, place offering intoxicating or nonintoxicating drinks for sale, tourist camp or place of public entertainment at which people assemble to eat, drink, dance, bathe, or engage in any game or amusement, or any place having therein or thereon any person engaging in the practice of being a medium, clairvoyant, soothsayer, palmist, phrenologist, spiritualist, or like activity, or one who, with or without the use of cards, crystal ball, tea leaves, or any other object or device, engages in the practice of telling the fortune of another; but this last clause shall not be construed to apply to persons pretending to tell fortunes as part of any play, exhibition, fair or amateur show presented or offered by any religious, charitable, or benevolent institution. It shall not mean a private home at which bona fide guests are entertained, drive-in theaters places of business conducted only as filling stations for motor vehicles or grocery stores, nor transient or temporary entertainment such as circuses, carnivals and county fairs."
The issuance of a permit, under KRS Chapter 231, addresses itself to the exercise of a reasonable discretion on the part of the county judge/executive. See KRS 231.020, 231.080, and 231.090. Also see Veterans of Foreign Wars v. Scott, Ky., 278 S.W.2d 733 (1955) 735.
Since this is a full time business and will involve a place of public entertainment and bathing and games or amusements, it is our opinion that the county judge/executive, in exercising his reasonable discretion, can find that the business is subject to the permit. The fact that the public place may promote health does not detract from the fact that it also involves entertainment. It is not every place of entertainment outside of an incorporated city that must secure a permit to operate, but only places of entertainment of the character defined by KRS 231.010. Commonwealth v. Polley, 298 Ky. 294, 182 S.W.2d 769 (1944). We think the business you have described meets the terminology of the statute. The General Assembly, in passing these statutes, had in mind the promoting of public morals, safety and welfare. Ratcliff v. Hill, 293 Ky. 36, 168 S.W. 336 (1943). The business you mention is one properly coming within that established public policy.
Of course a permit may be issued only to a person or individual human being, since KRS 231.030 requires a permit holder to be of good moral character. An artificial entity has no good moral character.