Collierville, TN Business Licensing & Operations: Adult Entertainment (2026)

Collierville Code of Ordinances § 151.024(I) regulates sexually oriented businesses through a Board of Mayor and Aldermen finding that adult uses cause adverse secondary effects, with a stated purpose of preventing the deleterious location and concentration of such businesses. The section says it has neither the purpose nor effect of limiting the content of communicative materials.

Subsection (2) classifies nine business types: adult arcades; adult bookstores, adult novelty stores or adult video stores; adult cabarets; adult motels; adult motion pictures theaters; adult theaters; escort agencies; nude model studios; and sexual encounter centers.

Subsection (3) makes it unlawful to operate without a valid sexually oriented business license issued by the Town, to employ anyone who lacks a sexually oriented business employee license, or to take such a job without one. Applications are made on a Town form and can require fingerprints. Each individual holding a 20% or greater interest must sign. The application needs a survey certificate and straight-line drawing prepared within 30 days before filing, showing other sexually oriented businesses, religious institutions, schools and public parks or recreation areas within 1,000 feet.

Subsection (11) controls location. The only permitted districts are RI Restrictive Industrial and GI General Industrial. The 1,000-foot buffers cover religious buildings, schools including child day care facilities, boundaries of the listed residential districts from RL through FAR, occupied residential dwellings, public parks, the property line of a lot used as a residence, and entertainment businesses aimed at children or family entertainment. Two sexually oriented businesses must also sit 1,000 feet apart, and only one may operate in a building. Distances run in a straight line, without regard to intervening structures, from the nearest portion of the building to the nearest property line of the protected use.

A business lawfully operating on February 1, 1999 that fails the rules is a nonconforming use for a period not to exceed one year, and it ends sooner if discontinued for 30 days or more. Licenses cannot be transferred or used at another address. Hours are barred between 1:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. on weekdays and Saturdays and between 1:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. on Sundays, except for adult motels.