Rapides Parish, LA Business Licensing & Operations: Adult Entertainment (2026)

Chapter 5, Division 2 of the parish code governs sexually oriented businesses, defined to include adult arcades, adult bookstores and video stores, adult cabarets, adult retail stores, adult theaters, nude model studios, and sexual encounter centers (§ 5-61). Section 5-62 bars any of these uses within 2,000 feet of a public park or library, a nonprofit educational museum, a church or synagogue, a public or private school, college or university, a day care center or kindergarten, another sexually oriented business or a structure containing one, any business that sells or serves alcoholic beverages, or a police jury-approved subdivision.

Section 5-63 measures that buffer in a straight line, ignoring intervening structures, from the nearest wall of the sexually oriented business to the nearest property line of the protected use, or to the nearest exterior wall of a rival sexually oriented business. Before opening, the operator must file a written application in duplicate with the Rapides Parish Sales Tax Collector under § 5-65, listing the applicant's name and officers, the type of business, its location, and the measured distance to every protected use nearby, along with a nonrefundable $500 application fee.

Licenses run the calendar year, January 1 through December 31 (§ 5-66), and must be posted conspicuously inside the business at all times (§ 5-67). m. A business already lawfully operating on April 9, 2001 that does not meet the buffer rule may continue as a nonconforming use under § 5-64, but it loses that protection if it ceases operating for any period and cannot expand.