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

5, adopted by Ordinance No. 15702 in 2010, restricts where a sexually oriented business, defined as any commercial establishment devoting a significant portion of its stock, revenue, floor space or advertising to material or merchandise depicting specified sexual activities or anatomical areas, including adult bookstores, adult video stores and adult novelty stores, can operate inside the city. Subsection (c)(1) confines these businesses to zoning districts classified industrial under the city's zoning ordinance; no other district qualifies. Subsection (c)(2) layers a 300-foot buffer around seven protected uses: parks, public playgrounds and community recreation centers; churches and other buildings used primarily for religious services; public or private schools from day care through community college, including their grounds and playgrounds; hospitals; public libraries; the property line of any residentially used lot, single or multi-family; and youth-service facilities such as youth centers, Scout buildings or 4-H clubs.

Subsection (c)(3) adds a further 300-foot separation between one sexually oriented business and another, so a second shop cannot open, or an existing one substantially enlarge, within that radius. Subsection (c)(4) fixes how the distance is measured: a straight line, ignoring intervening structures, from the nearest wall of the adult-business building to the nearest property line of the protected use. Subsection (d) folds in the city's separate obscenity provisions, Sections 13-17 through 13-18, requiring strict compliance with rules on displaying explicit material and selling it to minors. 5 is subject to the general penalty schedule in Section 1-8 of the Code of Ordinances.