Rothschild, WI Business Licensing & Operations: Adult Entertainment (2026)

2, added by the Village Board on July 28, 2025, defines an adult-oriented business broadly to include adult bookstores, adult motion picture theaters, adult cabarets, adult arcades, and any commercial enterprise displaying or selling sexually explicit materials or live performances emphasizing nudity or sexual activity. The Board states the purpose is not to suppress protected First Amendment expression but to control secondary effects such as increased crime and declining property values. Zoning-wise, these businesses are permitted only as a conditional use in the I-1 and I-2 industrial districts, meaning a case-by-case conditional use permit is required before opening even in an eligible district.

The ordinance then layers a 1,000-foot separation requirement measured in a straight line from the nearest property line of the business to the nearest property line of the restricted use: 1,000 feet from any residentially zoned property, from any school, daycare center, library, park, playground or recreational facility, from any church or other place of worship, and from another business of the same kind. A regulated business also cannot occupy a structure containing residential dwelling units or share space with another regulated use, and its signage must comply with the Village sign ordinance and may not depict nudity or sexual conduct.

Because the industrial districts are limited in size and the buffer runs 1,000 feet in every direction, few parcels in the Village can actually qualify.