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

Chapter 20 of the Charter Township of Royal Oak Code sets up two separate licenses. Section 20-41(a) makes it unlawful to operate a sexually oriented business in the township without a valid business license, and § 20-41(b) makes it unlawful to be an employee of one without a valid employee license. A business applicant must file a certificate and straight-line drawing from a registered land surveyor, prepared within 30 days before applying, showing existing sexually oriented businesses within 1,000 feet and any religious institution, school, or public park or recreation area within 1,000 feet (§ 20-44(12)). An application for every new employee is due within 30 days of hire (§ 20-44(13)(c)), and when the operator is not an individual, each person with a 20 percent or greater interest signs the application (§ 20-43).

Zoning adds the location layer in § 32-768. Adult book or supply stores, model studios, motion picture arcades and theaters sit on a list of regulated uses next to bars, cabarets, hotels and motels, massage parlors, pawn shops, pool halls and secondhand stores. Establishing any listed use is prohibited when it would be the third such use within a 1,000-foot radius, regardless of community boundaries. Applications go to the building official and are processed as special land uses, but the building official denies the application outright when two or more regulated uses already exist within 1,000 feet of the parcel. The 200-foot and 500-foot buffers in § 32-768(d)(2) cannot be waived. A regulated use that stops for 90 calendar days cannot be re-established without a new grant of approval by the Township (§ 32-768(d)(6)).

Operating limits follow the license. No sexually oriented business can stay open between 1:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. on weekdays and Saturdays, or between 1:00 a.m. and 12:00 noon on Sundays (§ 20-4). No employee or patron under 18 is allowed on the premises (§ 20-5), and activities cannot be visible from the public right-of-way (§ 20-9).