- April 24, 2024
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The changes will be on the City Commission’s June 18 agenda for the second reading.
BY MATT MENCARINI | STAFF WRITER
For the first time since 2008, the city made changes to its land development code involving sexually oriented businesses. If the changes pass through their second reading, sex-related companies will be under stricter standards, including having to be set up 500 feet from churches, schools and similar business.
Although Planning Director Ric Goss said no businesses currently fall under the sexually oriented classification, the City Commission voted June 3, to approve several amendments, including eliminating variances and changes to operating standards, based on research showing negative impacts of those types of businesses on their areas. The changes came in the form of two ordinances.
“We updated the ordinance(s) based on five years of events and court cases,” Goss said. “You have to do that or if you don’t update the ordinance, then some enterprising person is going to come in (and find loopholes).”
Like all ordinances, Goss said the land development code, as it relates to sexually oriented businesses, needed to be modernized, based on more recent case law, events and studies.
Some residents may be opposed to the idea of any sexually oriented businesses in the city, but the city can’t ban them completely without violating the First Amendment.
But the city can regulate, and Goss said the regulations are “necessary to protect, promote and preserve the general health, welfare, morals and safety of the general public and the citizens.”
In his presentation to the City Commission June 3, Goss presented studies showing negative effects of sexually oriented businesses, like an increase in blight conditions, a decrease in property value, an increase in crime and worsened sanitary conditions.
Among the regulations in the ordinances, any sexually oriented business must be 500 feet from all residential, park, church, school or childcare facility, be 500 feet from all other sexually oriented businesses, be 250 feet from all alcohol establishments and can’t publicly display explicit materials.
Additionally, one of the ordinances eliminated the Board of Adjustment and Appeals’ authority to grant variances from the separation distances. With the change, Goss can deny a permit request if it doesn’t meet the criteria, and a businesses owner can appeal the decision to the City Commission.
Both ordinances were approved on the first reading, and will be on the City Commission agenda June 18.
While Goss said Cheater’s Gentlemen’s Club, 1545 N. U.S. 1, is within the city limits, it’s zoned as a nightclub and not subject to the changes.
Also on tap for June 18
After denying the construction of a 150-foot cellphone tower near the intersection of Granada Boulevard and Clyde Morris Boulevard, the City Commission will have the issue on the June 18 agenda for its second reading.
The commission voted 4-1 June 3 to reject the application from Capital Telecom and Shah Industries Inc., citing negative aesthetics of the camouflaged tower. Mayor Ed Kelley was the dissenting vote.
