Carteret County, NC Business Licensing & Operations: Adult Entertainment (2026)

Sec. 3322 confines adult establishments to the B-1 general business district and conditions every location on a special use permit that the Board of County Commissioners grants only if all of the section's criteria are met. Subsection A sets a one-acre minimum lot size, requires minimum front, side, and rear yard setbacks of at least 50 feet, and requires the ordinance's standard buffering to be placed inside that 50-foot setback, in addition to the sign and parking rules that already apply county-wide. Subsection B layers on distance separation: no adult establishment may locate within one mile of another adult establishment, a nursery school, elementary, junior high, or high school, a public playground, or a church, and no closer than 600 feet to any residentially-zoned property, planned unit development, or land with an existing residential use.

Distances are measured in a straight line between the nearest lot lines under subsection C. Subsection E bars stacking uses, so no building that houses one adult establishment may also contain another, or a business that sells or exhibits sexually-oriented devices. Subsection G limits occupancy of any viewing booth in an adult mini-motion picture theatre to one person at a time. The county carried this section forward from an ordinance adopted December 6, 1993, and last amended it December 19, 2011.