Long Beach, CA Business Licensing & Operations: Adult Entertainment (2026)

Section 21.45.110 sets five separate distance buffers for adult entertainment businesses, all measured in a straight line from property line to property line "without regard to intervening structures or objects": 300 feet from any residential zoning district or residential Planned Development District, 1,000 feet from any K-12 public or private school, 600 feet from a City park, 500 feet from a church as defined in § 21.15.510, and 1,000 feet from any other adult entertainment business. The section also names specific corridors where new adult businesses cannot front, including stretches of Pacific Coast Highway between Hayes and Termino Avenues, Anaheim Street between the Long Beach Freeway and Termino, Santa Fe Avenue between Anaheim and PCH, Artesia Boulevard between Paramount and Downey, and Broadway between Atlantic and Euclid, areas the Long Beach Police Department determined experience high rates of arrests for prostitution, lewd behavior and disorderly conduct, a finding the code requires be reviewed every three years starting October 1, 1997.

Beyond siting, the ordinance layers on operational standards: parking equivalent to new construction regardless of any legal nonconforming rights, a video-monitored security system covering all parking areas, State-licensed armed uniformed security guards in a number set by the Chief of Police, a minimum one foot-candle of interior lighting at ground level, a ban on window displays of adult material visible from outside, and a hard curfew, no operation between midnight and 9:00 a.m.