Butte County, CA Business Licensing & Operations: Adult Entertainment (2026)

Sec. 15-111 flatly prohibits establishing or operating any adult business in unincorporated Butte County except as permitted under Article IV, and bars the county from issuing any building permit, certificate of occupancy or other entitlement for one outside that framework. Sec. 15-112(a) confines adult businesses, other than adult hotels/motels, to the GI (general industrial) and HI (heavy industrial) zones; an adult hotel/motel may instead locate anywhere hotels and motels are principally permitted, subject to distance rules. Sec. 15-112(c) layers on a 1,000-foot buffer measured in a straight line, property line to property line, from any other adult business (whether in the unincorporated area or an incorporated city) and separately from any existing residential zone, park, bar, liquor store, church or school, counting uses inside Chico, Paradise, Gridley or Biggs as well.

These buffers apply to existing nonconforming adult businesses, not just new ones. Sec. 15-113 requires an adult business permit from the county development director before opening, with a sworn application disclosing ownership, a site plan showing every other adult business and sensitive use within 1,000 feet, parking and lighting plans, and any operator's history of specified Penal Code sex-offense convictions; the filing fee matches the administrative permit fee in Sec. 3-43(17), and permits must be renewed every three years. Sec. 15-124 makes the development services department responsible for zoning enforcement and the sheriff's department responsible for other complaints, and declares any violation a public nuisance subject to injunction and permit suspension or revocation, expressly excluding criminal penalties for the article itself.