Bessemer, AL Business Licensing & Operations: Adult Entertainment (2026)

' Within it, land may be used only for adult establishments and their accessory structures and uses; any other C-1 neighborhood-commercial use requires Board of Zoning Adjustment review. The core protection is the spacing rule in subsection (4)(a): an adult entertainment establishment cannot operate within 1,500 feet of any religious institution, school, residential district, kindergarten or child-care facility, public or private park or playground, or another adult entertainment facility, with the distance measured zoning-district-line to zoning-district-line rather than lot line to lot line. Subsection (4)(b) adds an operating condition rather than a siting one: there can be 'no visible exposure to the general public of activities within the establishment,' requiring every window and door to be covered or blacked out.

Table 2 sets the AE district's own dimensional envelope at a 7,500-square-foot minimum lot, 75-foot lot width, 35-foot front yard, 25-foot rear yard, 15-foot side yard, 50 percent maximum ground coverage and a 35-foot height cap, tighter than most commercial districts. Because the buffer runs from every AE parcel outward, and Bessemer is a compact, largely built-out industrial city, the 1,500-foot rule functions as a practical limit on how many sites in the city can qualify for AE zoning at all.