Santa Clarita, CA Business Licensing & Operations: Adult Entertainment (2026)

020 of the zoning code limits adult businesses (adult bookstores, cabarets, motels, motion picture arcades and theaters, massage and figure modeling studios, escort agencies, and similar uses) to the Community Commercial (CC) and Business Park (BP) zones. 040 then layers a 1,000-foot separation requirement on top of the zoning limit: no adult business may operate within 1,000 feet of another adult business, a religious institution, a school, a public park, a public building, or any property zoned or used for residential purposes, with distances measured in a straight line, property line to property line, ignoring intervening buildings.

A business that predates a nearby church, school, park, or residential zone locating within that 1,000-foot ring keeps its legal nonconforming status when its permit and license are renewed, but only for renewals, not for a lapsed or revoked permit seeking reinstatement. 040 makes it unlawful to operate, engage in, conduct, or carry on an adult business without a City-issued adult business license, obtained only by the business owner after first securing an adult business use permit; the application requires a site plan, a signed statement of truth under penalty of perjury, the owner's fingerprints and photographs, and a five-year disclosure of the owner's criminal convictions.

050 requires the City to approve or deny a complete license application within ninety days, and a license can be denied outright if the owner was convicted of specified sex-related or adult-business-related crimes within the last two to five years, depending on the offense. m.