The New York Appellate Division has upheld the city’s strict zoning regulations against adult establishments as constitutional, a unanimous decision that could shut down more than 100 strip clubs, adult video stores, peep shows and adult theaters.
"New Yorkers won't have to push their strollers past porn shops, have topless bars for neighbors or have to worry about peep booths in the back of their corner magazine store,” New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in a statement. "Strip clubs and pornographic book and video stores don't belong in our residential neighborhoods, and they don't belong next to our schools, places of worship and day-care centers anywhere in the city."
Included in the ban would be the famous Scores on E. 60th St. on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
"The only place in Manhattan that you will have adult establishments is surrounding Jets stadium," said Mark Alonso, a lawyer for Ten's Cabaret on E. 21st St., told the New York Daily News.
The planned stadium is set to be built on Manhattan’s far West Side and would be home to the New York Jets and an added incentive to the city’s bid to bring the Olympics to New York.
Herald Price Fahringer, a lawyer representing the adult stores, told the New York Post he intends to go to court today to ask for a stay of the decision while he seeks permission to take the case to the state's highest court, the Court of Appeals. If he is unsuccessful in getting the stay, stores could be shut down as early as today.
Fahringer told the tabloid he was "alarmed" by the decision.
"I've always believed one of the most cherished freedoms we have is the right to read and see what we please," he said.
