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City of Fridley v. Fantasy House, Inc.. No. C5-91-8733 (Anoka County Dist. Ct. Aug. <br />17, 1993). <br />FACTS: <br />ISSUE: <br />HOLDING: <br />The City of Fridley brought a declaratory judgment action against <br />Fantasy House for violating its adult use ordinance by operating an <br />adult novelty store too close to a residential use district, a church, and <br />a city park. The City passed its adult use ordinance several months <br />after Fantasy House opened its store in a commercial district and began <br />selling sexually-oriented materials. <br />Is Fridley's adult use ordinance constitutional as applied to adult <br />novelty stores? <br />Although the bulk of the adult use ordinance is constitutional, the <br />section that applied to adult novelty stores was unconstitutional. <br />RATIONALE: The court ruled that the City had failed to show any actual adverse <br />secondary effects from the operation of Fantasy House in Fridley, and <br />also had failed to show that adult novelty businesses like Fantasy <br />House tend to cause the same secondary effects caused by other types <br />of adult businesses. The court distinguished businesses that provide <br />on-site consumption of adult materials from those that do not, noting <br />that the harmful secondary effects cited by the City as justification for <br />its adult use ordinance (i.e., traffic congestion, unusual hours of <br />operation, litter, noise, criminal activity, and greater incidence of sexual <br />crimes) were of a type likely to be caused only by the provision of on ­ <br />site entertainment or services. Significantly, this case was decided <br />before the Eighth Circuit's decision in ILQ Investment s. Inc, v. City of <br />Rochester. <br />The ccurt also addressed the constitutionality of regulations that use <br />a percentage-of-merchandlse measure to determine whether a business <br />is primarily an adult use. The court concluded that such restrictions <br />put the government in the position of focusing on content rather than <br />on secondary effects, since they require someone to make a <br />determination about the content of merchandise before a business can <br />be regulated. <br />Finally, the Court suggested that the alternative avenues of <br />communication available for adult businesses were inadequate. The <br />City had claimed that four percent (4%) of Fridley's total land area was <br />available for adult businesses, but the court found that claim to be <br />misleading, in that some of those areas were not viable relocation sites. <br />The Court did ngi conclude that four percent of the City's total land <br />A- 13