Washington County, AR Business Licensing & Operations: Adult Entertainment (2026)

04 defines and classifies sexually oriented businesses (adult arcades, adult bookstores and video stores, adult cabarets, adult motion picture theaters, and adult theaters) and then restricts where they can locate within the unincorporated county. No such business may operate within 500 feet of a church, a public or private elementary, secondary or post-secondary school, pre-school or childcare facility, or a public park. Separately, none may operate within 200 feet of the boundary of a residential area or public hotel/motel, or within 400 feet of a residential area as measured by automobile travel distance from the business's exit to the residential property line.

The ordinance also imposes a 1,000-foot buffer between two sexually oriented businesses and a 200-foot buffer from any establishment that sells or dispenses alcohol or beer. Distance for the church, school and park buffers is measured in a straight line from the nearest portion of the building used for the business to the nearest property line of the protected use. The ordinance is written to be content-neutral: it states its purpose is not to restrict access to constitutionally protected sexually oriented materials but only to prevent concentration of these businesses in unincorporated areas.

A business lawfully operating cannot be forced out later just because a church, school, park or residential use moves in nearby after the fact. Passed as Ord. 1998-005 on 2-13-1998, the section carries its own severability clause.