Revere, MA Business Licensing & Operations: Adult Entertainment (2026)

Revere Municipal Code § 17.16.045 opens with the city council's own findings: watching the 'Combat Zone' experience in neighboring Boston, the council concluded that adult entertainment establishments hurt economic development and residential property values, and that locating them near schools, parks, houses of worship, nursery schools, day care centers, kindergartens or playgrounds would harm the city's youth. The general limitation that follows backs that finding with three restrictions: an adult use cannot be built, altered or converted outside the TED district; it cannot open without a special permit from the city council; and it cannot sit within 300 feet of a lot that already holds another adult entertainment establishment, adult bookstore, adult video store, adult motion picture theater or adult advertising sign.

The special permit conditions add a second, larger buffer. Adult entertainment establishments and adult motion picture theaters cannot be located within 1,000 feet of the nearest lot line of each other, a public or private nursery school, day care center, kindergarten, elementary school, secondary school, playground or house of worship. Every special permit also carries mandatory operating conditions: the business must close between 1:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. each day, it cannot show any flashing light visible from outside, it cannot apply for a freestanding accessory sign, and it must provide a ten-foot landscaped strip along any public or private way plus one parking space for every 1.25 seats of capacity. Nearly identical spacing rules in the same section separately govern adult bookstores, adult video stores and adult use advertising signs.