Northern Kentucky officials are now said to be scrambling for ways to block or divert further adult video and other businesses from opening in their communities.
The Cincinnati Enquirer says they won't have to look far to know it won't be easy, given First Amendment protections for videos, print literature, dancing, and other adult materials - they only have to look across the state line, where, among other things, Hustler emperor Larry Flynt isn't exactly giving up the ghost in his battle to open adult shops in southern Ohio.
Flynt is continuing his struggle against Cincinnati's powers that be to keep them from shunting his plans for a Hustler store to an industrial area. Repeated obscenity trials don't keep adult video stores from operating in nearby Butler County - where Flynt is determined to open a Hustler store. The Rumors strip club (now known as Déjà vu) in Clermont County beat back township licensing efforts when a federal court ruled the lack of time limits on license and renew decisions was an unconstitutional flaw, the Enquirer says.
And the paper says it's the suburban growth of the industry in southwestern Ohio which has Northern Kentucky ready to man the parapets. "We have seen the tendency for adult-oriented businesses to be popping up on the 275 beltway, especially on the East Side of Cincinnati," says Boone County Judge-executive Gary Moore to the Enquirer. "With the heavy traffic patterns and prime land here, it might be a place where they might want to locate."
Louisville hosts a considerable number of adult businesses in and contiguous to the city limits, including a five-club chain of exotic dance clubs known as Thoroughbred Lounges, although one fear of opponents - incidents requiring police intervention - is not normally a feature at those clubs.
"I want to make sure Kenton County is protected as best we can be," said Kenton County Commissioner Barb Black to the paper. But the new Ohio Cabaret Association, which represents at least 20 adult businesses, tells the paper that kind of public hostility is "unwarranted and fed by well-practiced opposition groups who oppose any aspect of sexually oriented businesses
"They paint an ugly picture about the whole industry," continues OCA spokesman Terry Wolf. "A lot of people in this area are misinformed about adult clubs."
Indeed, the Enquirer says, area residents have mixed opinions about adult businesses. Says Laura Hellman, a 34-year-old mother of four in Newport who lives half a block from Monmouth Street's topless clubs, she'd like to be rid of them "because there are too many kids around." But one of Ms. Hellman's neighbors, Bill Kinneary, tells the Enquirer, "Pornography. Isn't that up to the individual? No one says you have to go buy it. No one forces people to go to those places."
In Kentucky, the paper says, half the state's counties have no zoning, while others have antiquated sex business ordinances which probably won't survive court challenges.
