West Des Moines, IA Business Licensing & Operations: Adult Entertainment (2026)

Title 9, Chapter 17 of the West Des Moines City Code regulates adult bookstores, adult movie theaters, adult nightclubs, adult motels, other adult businesses and adult newsracks as a distinct zoning category. Section 9-17-3 makes it unlawful for any person, whether acting alone, as an employee, agent or corporate officer, to place, maintain, own or operate one of those uses in a residential area, including on a sidewalk abutting a residential area, or within 1,000 feet of any residentially zoned or used property or any property the Comprehensive Plan designates as residentially oriented.

The same 1,000-foot buffer applies around elementary, junior high and senior high schools, churches that conduct religious programs, City, Polk County or Dallas County park and recreation facilities, federal, state, county, city or special-district government offices, supermarkets or convenience markets selling food, and family-oriented restaurants. Section 9-17-3 further separates adult entertainment facilities from one another, prohibiting any two from locating within 2,000 feet of each other as defined in section 9-17-2. Distances are measured in a straight line without regard to intervening structures, running from the closest exterior wall for facility-to-facility measurements and from the closest property line when measuring to a school, church, park, government office, supermarket, restaurant or residential property.

Signage on any permitted adult business must still conform to the city's sign ordinance under Chapter 18 of Title 9. Given how much of West Des Moines sits within 1,000 feet of a residential area, school, church, park, government building, grocery or restaurant use, the spacing rule leaves only a narrow set of nonresidential parcels where these businesses can legally operate.