San Luis Obispo County, CA Business Licensing & Operations: Adult Entertainment (2026)

Sec. 050 regulates adult bookstores, adult hotels or motels, adult motion picture arcades and theaters, cabarets and model studios wherever such uses would otherwise be allowable under Table 2-2. The Board's stated purpose is to prevent the concentration or clustering of these businesses so they do not blight or downgrade surrounding neighborhoods. Subsection C makes it unlawful to establish an adult business within 500 feet of any Residential category or residential zone district, within 1,000 feet of any other adult business, within 1,000 feet of a public library or any public, private or parochial school or preschool, within 1,000 feet of a church or bona fide religious organization's noncommercial establishment, or within 1,000 feet of a city, district or County-owned public park, playground or other public facility.

Distances are measured in a straight line, without regard to intervening structures, from the closest exterior wall of the adult business to the relevant property line under Subsection D. A property owner may seek a waiver of the spacing rules only through a Conditional Use Permit under Subsection E, which requires additional mailed notice to everyone within 1,000 feet and specific findings that the use will not be contrary to the public interest, will not enlarge or encourage a skid-row area, and will not interfere with neighborhood conservation or urban renewal programs.