Howard County officials are charging an adult bookstore here with violating its zoning ordinance.
The owners of the Pack Shack adult store were cited for being less than 300 feet from a residential zone, operating without a county permit and having doors that prevent employees from seeing into a viewing booth, the Baltimore Sun has reported.
The violation notice is the latest in an ongoing battle between the bookstore and county officials that has lasted nearly nine years. The county has been seeking to force the store to move from its prominent location along U.S. 40 and across from a major shopping center.
The store owners must correct the violations by July 15.
At issue is a zoning law adopted two years ago by the county that regulates adult businesses, but is only now being enforced with the store’s ownership.
Louis P. Ruzzi, a senior assistant county solicitor, told the newspaper that the business was inspected on May 30 but that he would not elaborate further.
The county had passed a similar zoning ordinance in 1997, but after years of legal wrangling, the measure was ruled unconstitutional for restricting free speech guarantees in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
After that December 2004 ruling a Howard County judge ordered the county must pay Pack Shack’s owners $187,690 in legal fees.
That law allowed 23 legal locations for adult businesses and required them to be no closer than 500 feet of residential areas, libraries, schools, churches, parks and other public facilities. It also required that adult stores would have to be a minimum 2,500 feet apart.
The latest law reduced the standards that require adult stores to be no closer than 300 feet from residential areas and other public areas and 1,000 feet from each other. The number of legal locations was raised to 101.
