Royal Oak, MI Business Licensing & Operations: Adult Entertainment (2026)

Section 770-76 of the Royal Oak Zoning Ordinance treats five categories as 'regulated uses': adult-oriented commercial enterprises, escort services and agencies, massage parlors and establishments, pawnbrokers and pawnshops, and tattoo, body piercing or branding studios. The ordinance states its purpose is locational, not content-based: it separates these uses from one another and from residential neighborhoods and places of public congregation, and it expressly disclaims any intent to limit sexually oriented materials protected by the First Amendment or to deny adults access to them. The spacing rules are strict and measured from the outermost lot boundaries.

No regulated use can locate within 1,000 feet of another existing regulated use. No regulated use can locate within 1,000 feet of a school, library, park, playground, licensed group day-care home or center, or a church, convent, monastery, synagogue or similar place of worship. No regulated use can locate within 150 feet of any residential zone. Beyond spacing, no one may reside on the premises of a regulated use, and an adult-oriented commercial enterprise violates the section if its merchandise or activities are visible from outside the establishment, or if its exterior or signage displays specified anatomical areas or sexually explicit content as the chapter defines them.

The massage-parlor spacing and use rules do not reach hospitals, sanitariums, nursing homes, medical clinics, or the offices of Michigan-licensed physicians, surgeons, chiropractors and osteopaths.