Florence County, SC Business Licensing & Operations: Massage Establishments (2026)

Section 30-250 of the Florence County Zoning Ordinance regulates massage parlors alongside bars, nightclubs, adult bookstores and adult theaters as a category of use the county finds carries objectionable characteristics that can blight a neighborhood when concentrated. The stated intent is to prevent these uses from clustering in one area and to keep them away from sensitive land uses. Paragraph (2) sets the operative locational standard: no adult bookstore, adult motion picture theater, adult mini-motion picture theater, adult drive-in motion picture theater, massage parlor or similar establishment may locate within 1,000 feet of any school, public or private park, church, or residential area anywhere in Florence County, and none may locate within 1,000 feet of another such establishment.

A related, separately numbered spacing rule in the same section requires a 500-foot minimum linear separation between bars, nightclubs and similar on-site consumption establishments where more than half of revenue comes from alcohol sales, though restaurants that primarily serve food are excluded from that particular distance rule. Paragraph (3) gives the Florence County Board of Zoning Appeals authority to grant variances from the locational requirements on a case-by-case basis. This section sits in Article VII of the zoning chapter, the general and ancillary regulations that supplement the district-by-district use tables, meaning a massage establishment must clear both its underlying zoning district's use permissions and this separation standard before it can operate in the unincorporated county.