SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Jeremy Kristic and several of his friends pounded on the door at Oscar’s bar Wednesday promptly at 11 a.m. They wanted it to open immediately, and they wanted to drink. They had after all other bars to go to — before closing time at 1 a.m.

“This is the one day we can go out to experience all the different kinds of bars,” said Kristic, a 30-year-old private investigator.

Bartenders in Utah threw open their doors Wednesday as the state ditched a 40-year-old requirement that customers fill out an application, pay a fee and become a member of a private club before setting foot in a bar.

“It’s 40 years of oppression come to an end,” said Dave Morris, owner of the bar Piper Down in Salt Lake City. “There’s this national perception that we don’t have bars here, so hopefully this gets out there that we’re open for business.”

To celebrate, Morris organized a 16-bar pub crawl to celebrate the novelty of being allowed into a bar without having to pay first. One crawl was set for Wednesday, another with a different lineup of bars was scheduled for Friday.

The new rules are an effort to boost the state’s $7 billion-a-year tourism industry and make the state appear a little less quirky to outsiders.

In the posh ski resort town of Park City, many locals took the change in stride. The area has long been known for bending state rules to accommodate tourists and many locals never bought a club membership.

“I don’t think it’ll change too much. It’s kind of open here,” said Bruce Morrison, while downing a beer at No Name Saloon on Park City’s historic Main Street. Morrison said he didn’t remember the last time he paid for a membership in Park City.

In Ogden, bartender Rich Miros at Brewskis happily scraped off lettering on the door that said the bar was a private club. The bar gets plenty of tourists from a nearby downtown hotel and skiers coming back from a day at the slopes at nearby Snowbasin.