Carbon County is moving forward with an online permitting application for gun permits.

On Thursday, the board of commissioners approved a license agreement with Permitium LLC of Pineville, North Carolina for an online license to carry permit application.

The new program comes to no cost to the county but a $5 convenience fee will be added to the online application, which will go back to the county.

Sheriff Dan Zeigler said this new online system will cut down on the amount of time people spend in the courthouse waiting on the state system to process applications.

“Instead of people having to come in and wait, they can do it from their smartphone or the website,” he said. “It’s very user friendly.”

Once the application is received, the county sheriff’s office will still input all the information into the system for the permit and once it is approved from the state, then the office will call the applicant to make an appointment to complete the process.

“They will have five days to come in, get their picture, pay their fee, show us their driver’s license,” Zeigler said. “They’re in and out in I think it was about seven minutes. Anyone choosing that option will greatly reduce the wait time that we have had before.”

For those wishing to remain with the old application process, Zeigler said that they are still more than welcome to come in and apply in person.

Approximately a dozen sheriff’s offices across the state are using this system so Zeigler is confident that this will be a good solution for Carbon County.

Earlier this month, Zeigler spoke about this new initiative because the county had been receiving complaints on the wait time for the process to be completed.

At that time, he said that usually in the afternoon the program the county utilizes through the state lags, creating delays.