Wilmington, NC Business Licensing & Operations: Adult Entertainment (2026)

Sec. 18-250(a) bars any adult establishment, adult bookstore, adult motion picture theater, adult cabaret or a massage business as defined in chapter 18, from locating within 1,000 feet of another adult establishment. Sec. 18-250(b) adds a 1,000-foot buffer from the boundary of any R-3, R-5, R-7, R-10, R-15, R-20, MF-M, MF-MH, MF-H or MF-L zoning district, any HD, HD-R or HD-MU historic district, or any single-family use inside the MS-MU or MX Districts, and the same 1,000-foot buffer applies to the boundary of any R-10, R-15 or R-20 district under the separate New Hanover County zoning ordinance.

Sec. 18-250(c) requires a further 1,000-foot separation from the lot line of any school, religious institution (including off-site accessory uses tied to the principal place of worship), any publicly or nonprofit-operated park or recreation facility, and any licensed child day care center or home, a rule that reaches outside the Wilmington corporate limits to catch nearby facilities. Sec. 18-250(d) spells out how every one of those distances gets measured: straight lines between the nearest lot lines for the establishment-to-establishment buffer, from the proposed lot line to the nearest district boundary point for the zoning buffer, and from the proposed lot line to the nearest lot line of the protected use for the school, church, park and day care buffer.