Thurston County, WA Animal Ordinances: Pet Groomer Rules (2026)

180 defines 'Personal services' as a business primarily engaged in providing services generally involving the maintenance of the human body, or other services to one's person or household pets, and it names pet grooming alongside barber and beauty shops, photographic studios, tanning parlors, massage practitioners, and obedience training. The same definition expressly excludes medical offices, kennels, and veterinary clinics, so a groomer that also boards or treats animals falls under a different, separate use category. Zoning permission for pet grooming as a personal service is broad.

040 lists 'Personal services' as a permitted (P) use in all five commercial districts of the Olympia UGA: Neighborhood Retail, Professional Office/Residential Multifamily, General Commercial, Medical Service, and Arterial Commercial. 040 likewise lists 'Personal services' as permitted (P) in all four village and center districts: Neighborhood Center, Neighborhood Village, Urban Village, and Community Oriented Shopping Center. That is a stronger by-right position than the veterinary office/clinic category holds under the same two tables, since grooming and obedience training sit with barbershops and tanning parlors rather than with the animal-hospital and kennel uses that face special use permit requirements in several of the same districts.

A groomer does not need a special use permit in any of the nine district types the two tables cover, though general development standards such as parking, still apply to the site.