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

Section 13-572(b) requires that a sexually oriented business first be located only in a zoning district where it is listed as a permitted use under Table 13-417A. On top of that zoning restriction, any business established or expanded after May 1, 2005 must maintain minimum separation distances measured against protected uses located anywhere in the county, whether the school, church or park sits in the unincorporated area or inside Wildwood, Bushnell, Webster, Coleman or Center Hill. The residential buffer is 1,000 feet, and 'residential property' for this purpose means land in a residential planned unit development or a zoning district beginning with an R, or land carrying a residential future land use designation.

The buffer against schools, licensed childcare or day care centers, houses of worship, and government-owned parks, playgrounds and libraries is 2,500 feet. The section also protects existing sexually oriented businesses from becoming nonconforming if a protected use is established near them later, and it bars the county from denying a sexually oriented business permit based on a protected-use permit that was filed after the sexually oriented business's own application. Related sections in the same division add design standards for specific formats: section 13-573 requires cabaret stages to be at least thirty inches high in a room open to customers, and section 13-574 sets lighting and seating rules for sexually oriented motion picture theaters, while section 13-570 lets a general retailer keep a smaller, screened-off selection of sexually explicit media without being classified as a sexually oriented business at all.