Decatur, GA Business Licensing & Operations: Adult Entertainment (2026)

Chapter 10, Article III of the Decatur Code of Ordinances regulates adult bookstores, adult motion picture theaters and arcades, erotic entertainment and dance establishments, and escort or introduction services under the umbrella term adult entertainment establishment. Section 10-58 confines every such business to the city's C-3 heavy commercial zoning district and layers on a distance rule: no adult entertainment establishment may sit on a property within 200 yards of the property line of a church or other place of worship, public park, public library, public housing development, hospital, public or private school, college, seminary, recreation center, or private residence, unless that residence itself sits in the C-3 district.

Distance is measured property line to property line along the shortest possible course, as the crow flies, not along a street route. Beyond zoning, §§ 10-76 through 10-83 require a separate city license before an adult entertainment establishment can open: employees must be at least 18, and licensees and their principals are disqualified for felony or moral-turpitude convictions within the prior five to ten years, depending on the section. Applicants must publish notice of the license application for two consecutive weeks in the county legal organ and post an 18-by-24-inch sign at the proposed site before the city commission acts.

Given Decatur's compact, roughly four-square-mile footprint, the 200-yard buffer combined with the single eligible zoning district leaves very little land in the city where such a use could lawfully locate.