Berkeley, CA Business Licensing & Operations: Adult Entertainment (2026)

070(A). An adult-oriented business may not be established within 300 feet of the boundary of a residential district, measured along the public right-of-way, nor within a 1,000-foot radius of any other adult-oriented business, preventing clustering. It also cannot locate within 600 feet of any public park, public health clinic, public library, school, or religious assembly use, a buffer that reaches most sensitive uses a family might frequent. 070(A)(2) adds outright district exclusions: adult-oriented businesses are not permitted on lots with frontage on San Pablo Avenue in the C-W district, and they are barred from public-serving frontages in the C-DMU district, Berkeley's downtown mixed-use zone.

These spacing and frontage rules function independently of whatever use permit an adult business might otherwise need under the zoning tables for its commercial district; even a location zoned to allow the underlying use is off-limits if it falls inside any one of the distance buffers or the barred frontages. The rule sits in the same Use-Specific Regulations section as Berkeley's separate limits on firearms and munitions businesses near residential uses, reflecting a pattern of siting restrictions the city applies to uses it treats as needing separation from housing, schools, and public gathering spaces regardless of the underlying zoning district's general permit requirements.