diff --git a/lib/ansible/module_utils/service.py b/lib/ansible/module_utils/service.py
index 06ae8392a83..5957c4442a6 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/module_utils/service.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/module_utils/service.py
@@ -36,7 +36,7 @@ import select
 import shlex
 import subprocess
 
-from ansible.module_utils.six import PY2, b
+from ansible.module_utils.six import b
 from ansible.module_utils.common.text.converters import to_bytes, to_text
 
 
@@ -187,12 +187,8 @@ def daemonize(module, cmd):
     if pid == 0:
         os.close(pipe[0])
 
-        # if command is string deal with  py2 vs py3 conversions for shlex
         if not isinstance(cmd, list):
-            if PY2:
-                cmd = shlex.split(to_bytes(cmd, errors=errors))
-            else:
-                cmd = shlex.split(to_text(cmd, errors=errors))
+            cmd = shlex.split(to_text(cmd, errors=errors))
 
         # make sure we always use byte strings
         run_cmd = []
@@ -247,9 +243,6 @@ def daemonize(module, cmd):
                     break
                 return_data += to_bytes(data, errors=errors)
 
-        # Note: no need to specify encoding on py3 as this module sends the
-        # pickle to itself (thus same python interpreter so we aren't mixing
-        # py2 and py3)
         return pickle.loads(to_bytes(return_data, errors=errors))
 
 
diff --git a/lib/ansible/modules/service.py b/lib/ansible/modules/service.py
index a94b8445bde..438aeb0e1a4 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/modules/service.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/modules/service.py
@@ -180,7 +180,7 @@ from ansible.module_utils.basic import AnsibleModule
 from ansible.module_utils.common.locale import get_best_parsable_locale
 from ansible.module_utils.common.sys_info import get_platform_subclass
 from ansible.module_utils.service import fail_if_missing, is_systemd_managed
-from ansible.module_utils.six import PY2, b
+from ansible.module_utils.six import b
 
 
 class Service(object):
@@ -285,14 +285,8 @@ class Service(object):
                 os._exit(0)
 
             # Start the command
-            if PY2:
-                # Python 2.6's shlex.split can't handle text strings correctly
-                cmd = to_bytes(cmd, errors='surrogate_or_strict')
-                cmd = shlex.split(cmd)
-            else:
-                # Python3.x shex.split text strings.
-                cmd = to_text(cmd, errors='surrogate_or_strict')
-                cmd = [to_bytes(c, errors='surrogate_or_strict') for c in shlex.split(cmd)]
+            cmd = to_text(cmd, errors='surrogate_or_strict')
+            cmd = [to_bytes(c, errors='surrogate_or_strict') for c in shlex.split(cmd)]
             # In either of the above cases, pass a list of byte strings to Popen
 
             # chkconfig localizes messages and we're screen scraping so make