Dallas regulates sexually oriented businesses (SOBs) under City Code Chapter 41A, which requires annual licensing, criminal-history screening of operators, mandatory zoning buffers, and detailed interior layout standards designed to limit secondary effects on neighborhoods, schools, and parks.
Chapter 41A defines SOBs to include adult arcades, bookstores, cabarets, motion picture theaters, motels, and nude modeling studios. Operators and managers must apply through the Dallas Permit and License Center, submit fingerprints, and clear criminal-history checks. Locations must sit at least 1,000 feet from churches, schools, public parks, residential districts, and other SOBs. Establishments must maintain open sightlines to performance areas, prohibit private viewing booths, enforce a six-foot stage separation between performers and patrons, and bar anyone under 18. License denial, suspension, and revocation are available for violations. Dallas defends Chapter 41A under the secondary-effects doctrine recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Operating an SOB without a Chapter 41A license, locating within 1,000 feet of protected uses, allowing patron-performer contact closer than six feet, admitting minors, or installing closed viewing booths triggers citations, license revocation, and abatement.
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See how Dallas's adult entertainment rules stack up against other locations.
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