Distribution of the paper broadened as new liquor rule interpretations at the Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (DABC) allowed mainstream media to carry club advertisements as long as they weren't "soliciting" members.

Saltas hired his first editor, then-KSL-TV journalist Tom Walsh, a veteran writer with experience from the alternative Phoenix New Times, who took a significant salary cut because of his enthusiasm for the new paper.

[2] Early contributors to Private Eye included Ben Fulton (who served as editor-in-chief until spring 2007), Christopher Smart (currently a reporter for The Salt Lake Tribune), Mary Dickson, Katharine Biele, Lynn Packer, and notable Utah defense attorney Ron Yengich.

From 1992 onward, reporter Lynn Packer scooped many stories about then-Salt Lake City Mayor Deedee Corradini, and Bonneville Pacific, an energy company.

During 1996, the newspaper's page count outgrew the capacity of independent Salt Lake City presses, so the paper made printing arrangements with the publisher of the Ogden Standard-Examiner.

In the early 1990s the paper began giving out yearly awards based on reader votes and staff input.

City Weekly had tried and failed to persuade the state's Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control to lift Utah's peculiar restrictions on liquor advertising.

In August the Utah Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission began drafting amendments to legalize liquor advertising in print, in restaurants, and on billboards.

[9] Saltas chided the Church in an editorial, but offered them a free full-page ad so they could explain their position against liquor advertising.

"[10] In October 2002, editor Christopher Smart left City Weekly for a reporting position with The Salt Lake Tribune.

Saltas now writes a light-hearted, somewhat blog-like column called "Private Eye", discussing his favorite Utah Jazz players, his Greek heritage, and jokes that he would soon be fired.

In addition to her renown as a liberal reporter and writer, she is now noted as the wife of former Salt Lake City Mayor Ted Wilson.

Apart from covering scandals about former Democratic Salt Lake City Mayor Deedee Corradini, the paper controversially editorialized against her and her associates.

City Weekly attacks on district attorney Neal Gunnarson so upset him that he stole hundreds of copies of the paper from the racks in 1997.

An article appearing in the issue posited that Gunnarson was being too soft on Mayor Corradini, claiming that his weak prosecution didn't "pass the smell test."

Facing Stuart Reid, a member of Corradini's administration, Anderson won, but the paper remained neutral during his 2003 re-election.

However, during Anderson's second term, he was visiting another city and crossed a police picket line in order to attend a scheduled meeting.

In 2004, City Weekly published a series of articles criticizing embattled Salt Lake County mayor Nancy Workman.

After emerging from bankruptcy in 2010, MediaNews Group lost control of the Tribune to a hedge fund, Alden Global Capital.

It also carries syndicated columns "News Quirks" by Roland Sweet, and The Straight Dope, by Chicago-based Cecil Adams, Free Will Astrology and comics such as Tom Tomorrow's This Modern World, and Keith Knight's K Chronicles.