02-22-1999 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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L__N I _________________!-■ SHOWCIRI-g " I' ‘ rr- 1I___ ;•; t « B vs^ ^ V • i-l' *\‘.p\ m ^£iB ■| i' /I juice bur in ^ .S<}('r(2/7irff/o .9| B sntnnb of Ranen K Cordova (al)ovel. Er nr ■W7P »«gy . .;L^..- - ;• j 5 X |4 ? I v^r . •/.TLV;». W| ii heft: Mark Koch of Kappei Illinois [pop. I50J, has upset liL^ neighbors by converting his restaurant and taycm into a strip joint—one of two in town. Above: Tee sers. Kappa's other strip Joint. fronts for prostitution typically have a low street visibility be* :ause almost all their arrange ments are made by telephone. Even massage parlors, once seen as a thin veil for prostitution, 'ave largely been contained by regulations requiring employ ees to acquire licenses from rec ognized professional massage organizations. Planners in the sparsely populated Nevada counties outside of Reno and Las Vegas have the unusual task of deal ing with legal prostitution. Some communities allow broth els outside of residential dis tricts. The city of Winnemucca ipop. 8,500) concentrates all adult uses on two particular blocks; five or six brothels op erate there, but no adult book stores or video stores. Saying no Few communities have banned adult uses outright—because the courts have consistenllv • held that outright bans violate First Amendment rights. One powerful cudgel that lo calities can wield is the author ity to regulate the time, place and manner of the consump tion of alcohol, the primary source of revenue for many adult businesses. Some courts have held that localities can prohibit the sale of alcohol In place s that offer adult entertainment. In reaction, adult "juice bars' that do not serve alcohol have popped up in California and other states. Plantation, Florida (pop. 76,000), has taken a different tack In 1997, the city amended its zoning ordinance to allow any business to devote up to two percent of its inventory to adult books, magazines, vid eos or other visual materi als—but the city also banned businesses whose sole func tion is adult entertainment. What's unusual is that the zoning ordinance has a back up provision: It says if the courts ultimately rule that adult entertainment must be allowed, those businesses will be obliged to locate in a specific indus trial area. "This is the fallback zone," say Donald Lunny and Harris Solomon of the Fort Lauderdale firm of Brinkley, McNerney, Morgan, Solomon, and Tatum—the city ’s attor neys. Lunny and Solomon feel con fident that the ordinance would prevail if challenged in court because adult entertainment is so easily obtained—not only in nearby communities but over the Internet and on cable tele vision as well. *If the courts' aim is to protect First Amend ment rights as opposed to al lowing an entrepreneur to make money, the reality is that there are plenty of places to obtain (this material)," says Solomon. Keep your distance Another tactic is to regulate the physical distance between ■foperformers and patrons. Dis tance regulations provide an effective tool against "lap danc ing* (where dancers sit on the laps of patrons and move about]. and they can cut down on performers' cash tips—per haps to the point of encourag ing them to find other work. New York City can compel businesses to move if they fail to comply with the city ’s new laws. Businesses in noncom plying areas are granted a two- year "amortization" period dur ing which they can seek a new location. No businesses have been forced to move yet, but many have moved in anticipa tion of approaching deadlines. Originally drafted in 1994, the regulations were tied up in numerous courts until last year, when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a chal lenge to lower court decisions upholding the regulations. One such decision came from