Sex Shop Licence
A sex shop licence is required for any premises or other venue that sell a significant degree of sex articles such a sex toys, books or videos.
If you use a premises, vehicle, stall or vessel within North Ayrshire for a business which consists to a significant degree of selling, hiring, exchanging, lending, displaying or demonstrating "sex articles", R18 rated video recordings can only be sold at licensed Sex Shops.
A Sex Shop licence is not required merely for the exhibition of moving images, such as film or video. A Cinema licence may be required.
A "sex article" means anything intended for use in connection with, or for the purpose of stimulating or encouraging.
Anyone can apply for a sex shop licence. However, by statute the Council is not allowed to grant a licence under certain circumstances. Please contact the Licensing Office at the address or number to the right hand side of this page if you require any further information.
An application pack can be obtained using the contact details on the right of this page.
Completed application forms should also be sent to the contact details at the right of this page. The application form should be accompanied by the non refundable fee.
On receipt of the completed documents, the application will be circulated to all consultees listed on the front of the form and some of the consultees will carry out an inspection of the premises (if applicable). It will also be advertised on the Council's website to allow for members of the public to lodge any objections or representations to the issue of the licence.
If there are no objections, the licence will be issued for a period of 3 years from the date of issue.
It is in the public interest that North Ayrshire Council must process your application before it can be granted. If you have not heard from the Licensing Office within a reasonable period, please contact us. You can do this using the contact details to the right of this page.
Please note that the application process may take up to several weeks.
For 2010/2011 the fee for a Sex Shop licence is £1785. The fee is subject to annual review.
The fee is not returnable if you decide to withdraw the application or if the licence is refused.