Tampa, FL Business Licensing & Operations: Adult Entertainment (2026)

Sec. 27-132 of the zoning chapter sets the special-use standards a proposed adult use must meet before the zoning administrator will approve it: no adult use within 500 feet of any residential or office zoning district, none within 1,000 feet of another adult use, with distance measured property line to property line along the shortest path regardless of how you'd actually travel it. Windows, doors and other openings must be covered, screened, or otherwise treated so no one outside can see into the establishment. Unlike most special-use standards in that section, the code explicitly forbids the city from waiving any of the adult-use location or screening standards.

Separately, Chapter 6's business-permit rules add a personal-history screen: Sec. 6-141 requires anyone applying for or renewing a business operating permit for an adult use to certify by sworn statement that they (or, for a corporation, every officer) are at least eighteen, have not been convicted in the past ten years of a felony connected to a similar business or bearing on fitness to run one, and have no ten-year conviction for prostitution-related offenses, pandering, letting premises for prostitution, keeping a disorderly place, or drug dealing or possession.

Adult uses established before Ordinance No. 8068-A took effect on October 1, 1982, and that don't conform to current requirements, are treated as nonconforming under Sec. 27-338.