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

Dougherty County Code § 2-10-101 finds that unregulated adult entertainment establishments threaten public health, safety, and morals while acknowledging First Amendment protection, and Article VIII sets a licensing and zoning framework rather than an outright ban. Section 2-10-102 defines 'adult entertainment' as performances by topless or bottomless dancers, strippers, or similar entertainers featuring specified anatomical areas, and an 'adult entertainment establishment' as a restaurant, nightclub, cabaret, bookstore, or similar business whose primary purpose involves nudity, sexual conduct materials, or activities such as massage parlors or bathhouses operated in that manner.

00 set by board resolution. Section 2-10-104 requires a designated on-premises operator during all operating hours, and § 2-10-105 requires every employee, including independent contractors, to hold an individual employee permit. Section 2-10-106 bars admitting anyone under 18 and requires an attendant at each public entrance to check identification. Section 2-10-107 confines these establishments to the Commercial (C-3) zoning district (unless established earlier) and imposes a 1,000-foot buffer, measured property line to property line 'as the crow flies,' from any residentially zoned parcel, church, school, licensed day care center, government building, library, civic center, park or playground, or another adult entertainment establishment.

Because Dougherty County excludes the incorporated City of Albany from its definition of the county for this article, these rules apply only outside Albany's city limits.