It's a border war - between the city of Tampa and Hillsborough County. County attorneys want a court to revoke a city permit for an adult business near homes and an elementary school, while Tampa says it can protect city residents only, which the county calls "unreasonable."
The St. Petersburg Times says the suit was to be filed last Friday.
And the county school board is joining in the fun. "This is an ordinance that has a ridiculous result," school board attorney W. Crosby Few tells the Times.
The flap began earlier this year, when Tampa zoning officials approved a plan for a 7,300 square-foot X-rated video and bookstore just west of Interstate 275 on the border between Tampa and unincorporated Hillsborough, the paper says.
Tampa ordinances bar sexually-related businesses within five hundred feet of homes or offices, but city codes do not count homes or businesses outside the city limits.
Residents were outraged, the Times says, when learning of the X-rated video/bookstore, but city attorneys said revoking the permit could jeopardize Tampa's adult-use ordinance, which is under fire as it is from strip clubs Tampa wants to shut down.
A senior assistant Hillsborough County attorney, H. Ray Allen, tells the paper Tampa's decision violates its own comprehensive plan and fails to follow the spirit of the law, while denying county residents equal protection. "I think their code has to apply to everybody," he says.
The last time the county and city fought in court was t he early 1980s, when Tampa accused Hillsborough of taxing Tampa residents twice for the same services.
