Lewis County, WA Business Licensing & Operations: Adult Entertainment (2026)

Lewis County Code § 17.42.020, Table 2 (Land Use Summary) lists "Adult entertainment" under the Amusement/Recreational use category and runs it across every zoning column the county maintains for unincorporated land: Rural, LAMIRD Types 1 through 3, Resource, Other Rural, Urban Growth Area, UGA-Small Towns, RDD-10, RDD-20, STMU, RRC, CC, TSA, STI, FC, RAI, ARL, FRL and MRL. All of those columns show "X," which the table's legend defines as "Prohibited." The single column marked otherwise is RDD-5 (Rural Development District, five-acre minimum), where the table shows "SUP," defined in the same legend as "Special use permit." That means an adult entertainment business can only be sited in unincorporated Lewis County within an RDD-5 zone, and only after obtaining a special use permit reviewed under the county's discretionary permit process rather than being approved administratively as a permitted use.

Where an adult entertainment or casino use is developed in a district covered by the county's off-street parking chapter, Lewis County Code § 17.145.040(9)(c)(ix) sets the parking ratio at one parking space for every 100 square feet of floor area, with exhibition hall or auditorium floor area added cumulatively to that count. Section 17.145.040(1) limits that parking chapter's application to the Small Towns Mixed Use/Commercial, Small Towns Industrial, Crossroads Commercial and Rural Residential Center chapters (17.45, 17.55, 17.60 and 17.95 LCC). Because adult entertainment is not a permitted use in those particular districts under the Table 2 use matrix, an applicant pursuing the RDD-5 special use permit route should confirm with Lewis County Community Development which parking standard the hearing examiner applies to that permit, since the code's parking chapter is written to reach the small-town and crossroads commercial districts rather than RDD-5 directly.