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

Under the county's Land Development Code, adult bookstores and adult theatres are permitted principal uses only within the I-1 zoning classification. Section 72-293(1)a sets three location tests that stack on top of that zoning limit: no adult bookstore or theatre may sit within 400 feet of land zoned C, P, FR, RC, A-1 through A-3, RA, RR, R-1 through R-9, MH-1 through MH-8, OUR, AP, SWC, SWR or PUD (unless the use is itself part of that PUD); none may locate within 1,000 feet of any other adult bookstore or theatre; and none may sit within 400 feet of a church, public school, public park or recreational facility, or a public school bus stop.

All three distances are measured property line to property line, without regard to the actual route of travel, so the county does not credit a longer walking or driving path between two sites. Because I-1 industrial land bordered by a qualifying buffer is comparatively scarce across unincorporated Volusia, the combined effect of the zoning confinement and the three spacing tests functions as a near-exclusionary siting scheme rather than a simple use permit. Growth and Resource Management reviews these distances at site plan and zoning compliance stages, and a use that fails any one of the three tests cannot be approved regardless of underlying I-1 zoning.

This provision applies only in the unincorporated county; Daytona Beach, Deltona, Ormond Beach, Port Orange, New Smyrna Beach, DeLand, Edgewater, DeBary and Orange City each administer their own separate adult-use zoning standards.