Lafayette, LA Business Licensing & Operations: Adult Entertainment (2026)

Section 18-3, added by Ordinance No. O-163-2010, states plainly that it "only applies in the City of Lafayette," so the same store sitting in unincorporated Lafayette Parish is not covered by this spacing rule. A business counts as an adult novelty store, adult bookstore, or adult video store when a "substantial or significant portion", defined as 25 percent or more of inventory, revenue, or display space, is devoted to specified sexual material or paraphernalia designed for genital stimulation or sadomasochistic use. The 300-foot school/library/playground buffer expressly excludes business colleges, business schools, and the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, so a store can sit close to UL Lafayette without tripping that buffer.

Distance is not measured as the crow flies: the code requires measuring "as a person walks using the sidewalk" from the nearest property line of the protected use to the nearest point of the building to be licensed. A store that was already operating before a school, library, playground, church, or synagogue moved in nearby keeps nonconforming status and can stay open, but that protection disappears the moment the store closes, defined as ceasing operations and denying public access, after which it cannot reopen at that location within the restricted distance. The section carries its own misdemeanor clause tying enforcement to the Code's general penalty provision.