10-18-1999 Planning Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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FROM l*A«/ iv* V 7/ . V • ”v '•••• .*•.“ .«V. ^ J*. *. •, IS iuuiviuutti m>n-commcrciai expression. Accoramgiy, raumcipaimes may regulate me time, place, and manner of sexually-oriented expression like tliat offered by adult businesses if there is a valid govciimicntal interest in doing so and the regulatory scheme is narrowly tailored to achieve such valid objectives. A city may not, whether by purpose or effect, completely ban or exclude sexually-oriented speech, other than obscenity. To be valid, government regulation of non-obsceoe sexually-oriented materials and expression must be (1) "content-neutral," meaning that a city cannot regulate the content of the speech or expression involved; (2) narrowly-tailored to advance a substantial government interest, which the courts have determined includes preventing the unwanted secondary effects of adult businesses; and (3> must allow reasonable alternative avenues of communication, meaning that adult businesses cannot be e.xcluded completely ftom a city but may be restricted from locating within specified distances of certain uses. The focus of any government regulation of adult businesses must be on the secondary effects they will have on surrounding uses and areas, and not on their content — i.e., the mere fact that they are adult businesses featuring se.xually-orleoted materials. If a City Council reasonably believes that the types of adult businesses it is proposing to regulate will produce such unwanted secondary effects, it will be allowed "a reasonable opportunity to c.xperiment with solutions" to protect the community from such impacts. In terms of adequate alternative avenues of communication, the United States Supreme Court has upheld an ordinance that allowed adult businesses to locate only within 3% of the total area of a city. Other courts in other cities have measured alternative avenues of communicauon available to adult businesses by the number of separate business sites that became available once the regulation went into effect and/or the proportion of commercially- zoned land (generally including business, commercial, and industrial districts) within which an adult business could operate. As drafted tlie ordinance proposed for Orono targets the unwanted secondary effects that, based on studies, other cities have found to be caused by the presence of adult businesses. Nevertheless, for clarity, wc have attempted to make the City's purpose in that regard more explicit, both in the ordinance text and in the proposed findings on which its adoption might be based. We have also added language that declares the City CouocU's specific intent not to interfere with the exercise of First Amendment rights. Before the City Council acts on the proposed Amendment, City staff must complete its study of the alternative avenues of communication that will be available if the ordinance is adopted, in terms of the proportion of space within the city's commercial districts or the city as a whole where an adult business could locate. The draft Ordinance would impose distance resiricUons between adult businesses and certain vulnerable uses, such as day care centers, Z2V22184735 KM/99