Bonneville County, ID Business Licensing & Operations: Adult Entertainment (2026)

Chapter 114 of the county code permits sexually-oriented businesses, defined to include adult bookstores, cabarets, arcades, motels, theaters and bikini bars, only in the I&M-2 and I&M-3 zoning districts, with bikini bars limited to C-2 zones (§ 114.03(A)). No such business may locate within 1,000 feet of another sexually-oriented business or within 2,500 feet of a religious institution, school, boys' or girls' club, public park, public building or any residentially zoned property, or within 1,000 feet of property used for residential purposes (§ 114.03(B)). Section 114.04 fixes how those distances are measured: straight-line, ignoring intervening structures, from the closest exterior wall between two sexually-oriented businesses, or from property line to property line for schools, parks, churches and residential land.

Operating requires a permit from the County Planning and Zoning Administrator, who grants, denies, suspends, revokes and renews permits, while the County Sheriff investigates applicant criminal history and enforces the chapter's other provisions (§ 114.09(A)-(D)). Applications go to the County Zoning Office and must include owner identification, a floor-plan sketch accurate to plus or minus six inches, and a land-surveyor's certified distance drawing prepared within the prior 30 days showing every regulated use within 2,500 feet (§ 114.09(F)). A nonrefundable $100 application fee accompanies the filing, and the annual permit fee is likewise $100 (§ 114.09(J); § 114.12).

The county must act on a completed application within 60 days (§ 114.10(A); § 114.11(A)). Existing businesses made nonconforming by the chapter's adoption may continue under Chapter 156's nonconforming-use rules, and a conforming permit holder is not displaced merely because a school, church or residential district later locates within 2,500 feet, unless the permit later expires or is revoked (§ 114.06).