Rutherford County, TN Business Licensing & Operations: Adult Entertainment (2026)

2 of the Rutherford County Zoning Ordinance opens with the County Commission's finding that adult entertainment carries secondary effects including prostitution, narcotics and liquor law violations, breaches of the peace, and contact between patrons and entertainers, and that these effects harm residential neighborhoods, business districts and property values. To address that, the ordinance bars any adult entertainment activity within 1,000 feet, measured in a straight line lot-line to lot-line without regard to intervening structures, of a residentially or institutionally zoned district; a lot devoted to residential or community facility use (other than extensive impact facilities); any business licensed to sell beer or intoxicating liquor; or any other adult entertainment activity.

Because adult entertainment is reviewed as a special exception, an applicant must submit a certified and signed survey from a licensed surveyor or engineer showing the distance measurements to every listed use within range. The ordinance also bars conducting adult entertainment in a way that lets the activity inside the building be observed from outside. As a special exception use, the Board of Zoning Appeals reviews and approves or denies the application rather than staff issuing it administratively, and the spacing survey is a submission requirement the Board checks before granting the exception.