Boone County, IN Business Licensing & Operations: Adult Entertainment (2026)

Section 157.181 states the intent behind the rules: protecting residential neighborhoods, deterring blight and shielding minors from adult entertainment's secondary effects by restricting proximity to churches, parks, fairgrounds, schools, day care centers and residential areas, including AG districts. Section 157.182 sets the actual buffers: 1,000 feet from another adult entertainment business, and 600 feet from any existing church, school, day care center, park, fairground, AG district or “R” district within the Area Plan Commission's jurisdiction. Section 157.183 measures those distances in a straight line, without regard to intervening structures, from the closest exterior structural wall of the adult entertainment business to the nearest lot line of the protected use, or to the nearest wall of another adult business.

Section 157.184 layers on exterior-display limits: no material depicting specified sexual activities or anatomical areas may be observable from a public right-of-way; only one wall sign (front facade only) and one freestanding sign meeting the zoning district's requirements are allowed; wall signs are capped at 5% of the first-floor front facade or 100 square feet, whichever is less; freestanding signs are capped at one square foot per lineal foot of lot frontage or 24 square feet, whichever is less; and no sign may be illuminated by exterior spotlights or floodlights. Section 157.185 subjects existing uses that no longer meet the buffers to the county's general nonconforming-use rules in §§ 157.120 et seq.