For people opening or moving a club or adult store

2,140 feet from the school. The rule says 2,500.

Blocking takes your city’s buffer distances, measuring rule and allowed zones, records the measured distance from each candidate site to every protected use as a dated worksheet for the permit file — and will not sign a worksheet while any buffer is short, unmeasured or stale, or the zone is wrong.

Open the demo See pricing

Opens in this browser with an invented business already in it. No account, no email address, nothing installed.

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The problem

The lease was signed before anybody measured.

Cities keep adult businesses away from homes, schools, parks, libraries, daycare and places of worship, and from each other, by fixed distances measured a fixed way — and allow them only in certain zones. A site that misses one buffer by a few hundred feet is a site the permit will be refused on, after the deposit is gone.

1,000 ft

from any residential district and from another sexually oriented business, in one Idaho city’s code.

Sugar City, Idaho code 9-9-3 →

2,500 ft

from public libraries, parks and playgrounds, K-12 schools and their grounds, licensed daycare, and places of worship.

Sugar City, Idaho code 9-9-3 →

Line to line

measured in a straight line, ignoring buildings in between, property line to property line — and only in two zones, by special permit.

Sugar City, Idaho code 9-9-3 →

Will not sign a worksheet for a site that does not fit.

Not a reminder. Sign the worksheet refuses, with each buffer named, while the site’s zone is not one the rule allows, or any buffer has no measurement, a measurement short of its distance, or a measurement older than the limit you set. A signed worksheet is frozen. There is no override.

How it works

Rule, site, tape measure

Type the city’s rule

Each protected use and its distance, how distance is measured, and the zones the use is allowed in — from the city’s own code, with the section.

Measure each site

For every buffer, the nearest one and its distance, how it was measured and by whom — or a dated note that nothing of that kind is within it.

Sign for the permit file

When every buffer is clear and recent, the worksheet is signed and frozen, ready to attach to the application.

What it will never do

It checks your numbers. It does not invent them.

Blocking uses the rule and the distances you give it.

No map service.Nothing is looked up. You measure, from a survey, a GIS layer or a map, and say which.

It knows no city’s rule.You type yours from the code. The demo’s is one Idaho city’s.

It is not a permit.The city decides. Blocking is the worksheet you bring.

It never touches a payment.The fee is per site and it is for software.

Pricing

Priced per site checked

Pay when you are looking, not every month.

One site

$99/month

One candidate site.

Your city’s rule
Every buffer measured and dated
Sign gate, no override

Most searches

Three sites

$249/month

Up to three candidate sites.

Everything in One site
Compare sites side by side
Print the worksheet

Broker

$599/month

A broker checking up to ten sites a year.

Everything in Three sites
Several cities’ rules
Priority support

One-off price per site. Your bank statement says Blocking Software. Your licence key is emailed to you within two working days of payment.

Checkout is our own bitcoin server, not a card processor — nobody we had to apply to and nobody who can close the account. The button takes you straight to it. Give your email address there — that is where your key is sent.

Questions

The ones we actually get asked

Does Blocking measure the distances?

No. You measure them, from a surveyor’s letter, the county GIS or a map, and record how. Blocking checks them against the rule.

Why does a measurement go stale?

A school, a daycare or a church can open next door between your search and your application. Measure again before you sign.

Is exactly the buffer distance enough?

Blocking treats a distance equal to the buffer as clear. Check your city’s wording — some say ‘within’, some ‘closer than’.

Is this legal advice?

No. It is a worksheet that argues with you. The city decides.

What do I actually get when I pay?

The demo on this page is the whole program, running on invented records. Paying gets you a licence key — one line of text, emailed to the address you give at checkout within two working days. Paste it into the program and from then on it keeps your own records. Until then, nothing you type into it is kept.

The key is checked inside the page, on your own machine. It never calls us, so there is still no account and nothing about your business goes anywhere. If you ever stop paying, your records stay exactly where they are, read-only, and Export still hands you every one of them.

Open the demo before the lease

The industrial park lot was measured by a surveyor and signed last month. The highway parcel cannot be: the elementary school’s grounds are 2,140 feet away against a 2,500-foot buffer, and the park was measured four months ago. The Main Street storefront is in a zone the city does not allow at all.

Open the demo See pricing