Harnett County, NC Business Licensing & Operations: Adult Entertainment (2026)

111(F)(6) places sexually-oriented businesses, defined to include an adult bookstore, adult motion picture theater, or nightclub, under a strict locational buffer as part of the county's retail services use standards in the Unified Development Ordinance. The use must sit no less than 2,000 feet from any religious structure, educational institution or school, any other sexually-oriented business permitted under the chapter, any dwelling unit, or any land zoned for residential use. The ordinance specifies exactly how that distance is measured: from the exterior walls of the building housing the regulated use, checked independently to the north, south, east, and west.

Because the buffer runs in all four directions and counts residential zoning districts generally, not just occupied houses, the practical effect is to confine sexually-oriented businesses to industrial or heavy-commercial parcels far from any residential subdivision, church, or school campus, which in a largely rural county like Harnett leaves a narrow set of eligible sites. A site plan for this use goes through the county's Planning Department, which checks the 2,000-foot buffer in every direction before any permit or certificate of occupancy can be issued; a parcel that fails the distance test in even one direction does not qualify no matter how it scores on the others.