New Brunswick, NJ Business Licensing & Operations: Adult Entertainment (2026)

Title 17 of the New Brunswick Municipal Code defines four sexually oriented business types. An adult bookstore, video store or sex shop is an establishment with a substantial portion of its stock-in-trade, floor area or display area used for sexually oriented material. An adult cabaret features topless dancers, go-go dancers, strippers or similar entertainers. An adult motion picture theater is an enclosed building presenting material that emphasizes specified sexual activities or anatomical genital areas. A go-go bar is a place of business that sells alcoholic beverages, beer or wine for consumption on the premises and offers dancing on a stage, bar or platform by a person clad in a minimal amount of clothing, for patrons of a sexually oriented nature.

An alcohol-free go-go bar is the same use without alcohol sales. The operating standards the zoning text prints are the conditional use rules for go-go bars, set out in the I-2 General Industrial District regulations of § 17.04.040 directly after the I-2 bulk table. Each go-go bar needs a lot of at least 20,000 square feet and one off-street parking space for every two patrons who can legally occupy the structure at any time, plus one space per employee during the peak employment hour. All dancing and entertainment must cease at least one hour before closing time.

The operator provides separate dressing rooms for entertainers, and the application package must document a minimum of one professional security personnel contracted to be on site during all hours of operation. The alcohol-free version repeats the lot size, parking, dressing room, security, 250 foot and 1,000 foot rules and the same 11:30 a.m. to 2:00 a.m. hours. Under § 17.03.010.C, only uses the ordinance lists as permitted principal, accessory or conditional uses are allowed, and all other uses are prohibited.