Surry County, NC Business Licensing & Operations: Adult Entertainment (2026)

County Code Chapter 114 makes it unlawful for any person, firm or corporation to operate or allow adult live entertainment, meaning a live performance exhibiting specified anatomical areas, anywhere in unincorporated Surry County outside a municipality's corporate limits, except as the chapter permits. Section 114.03 finds that less than completely or opaquely covered female breasts is a protected form of speech that the Board of Commissioners may regulate by location. The activity is permitted only inside a fully enclosed building where nothing can be seen or heard from outside, and that structure must sit at least 2,000 feet from any area of interest, a list covering churches, schools, parks, child care and day care facilities, retirement and nursing homes, inns, hotels and motels, cemeteries, public libraries, residential subdivisions, approved mobile home parks, public recreational facilities, residentially zoned districts and National Register historic buildings.

The building itself must also be 100 feet from any public road right-of-way and 50 feet from a neighboring side or rear line, and it must be screened along every property line by an opaque fence at least 7 feet tall or a landscaped buffer at least 15 feet wide and 7 feet tall. If a school or similar use later locates within 2,000 feet of an already-operating, continuously running business, the separation requirement does not apply retroactively, though a 60-day shutdown ends that protection. The Sheriff's Office enforces the chapter alongside the county's general criminal-enforcement authority under G.S. §§ 14-4 and 153A-123.