Monroe County, FL Business Licensing & Operations: Adult Entertainment (2026)

Monroe County Land Development Code Section 134-23 allows sexually oriented businesses only in land use districts that permit commercial development under Chapter 130, Article III, and then only if the location clears four separate 500-foot buffers at once. No sexually oriented business may sit within 500 feet of the property line of any residentially used property, within 500 feet of a place of worship, public park or school, or within 500 feet of another sexually oriented business. The county measures every one of those distances as a straight line from property line to property line, using the closest lines of the parcels involved, so there is no allowance for road distance or walking distance.

The section also regulates what the outside of the building can show: windows and other openings that would let someone see inside the establishment must be opaquely covered, and signage for the business cannot depict specified anatomical areas or specified sexual activities as those terms are defined in Section 134-22. A sexually oriented bookstore, entertainment establishment or motion picture theater already operating lawfully is not made nonconforming just because a home, church, park or school moves in nearby afterward, but that protection disappears if the business is terminated or shuts down for 90 days or more. Any sexually oriented business that existed before the current ordinance had one year from its effective date to conform or shut down.