Moreno Valley, CA Business Licensing & Operations: Adult Entertainment (2026)

030 opens by stating its purpose: control the judicially recognized secondary effects of adult businesses, increased crime, lower property values, vacancies, and neighborhood deterioration, while protecting First Amendment rights to own, operate or patronize such a business. It works in two layers. 020-1, and even there it is unlawful to open one within 500 feet of an existing residential zone, park, religious establishment, school, or child day care facility, or within 1,000 feet of any other adult business, both distances measured property line to property line along a straight line.

No building permit, zoning clearance, business tax receipt or adult business use permit is legally valid if issued for a location that fails either distance test. Second is the permit itself: under subsection (D), it is unlawful to establish, operate or conduct an adult business anywhere in the city without first obtaining, and continuously maintaining, an adult business use permit from the community development director or designee, and any expansion, relocation, conversion of an existing business into an adult business, or floor-area increase of more than 10% counts as a new 'establishment' that triggers a fresh application.

The application itself is detailed: applicants must disclose legal names and any aliases, corporate or partnership structure, a dimensioned floor plan, and a sworn statement about any past sex-offense convictions, with waiting periods of two years for a misdemeanor and five years for a felony conviction before someone with that record can hold a permit. 07.