The city is considering new regulations aimed at restricting where adult businesses could be located.
Tonight, the Planning Commission will conduct a public hearing to discuss proposed revisions of the zoning code that would set standards for the location of adult businesses, the Roanoke Times reported.
The City Council is scheduled to discuss the matter on Sept. 25.
Melinda Payne, director of planning and development, said the city had not addressed the issue previously and is merely responding to how other local governments are handling the matter.
Although courts have previously ruled against cities that have written laws to effectively bar adult businesses from their communities, the city says it is free to limit where such businesses could be located.
The new regulations may limit adult businesses to areas zoned as Highway Business District and to a minimum 300 feet from schools, churches, homes and other public facilities.
The proposed measure would also ban the display of adult materials from store windows, restrict signage and regulate lighting as well as require video surveillance inside stores and on parking lots.
The measure would also prohibit exposure of an adult entertainer’s genitals or pubic area as well as most of the buttocks and nipple area and lower half of the breasts on a woman.
The purpose of the proposed guidelines, the measure says, are to regulate adult businesses and to “promote the health, safety, morals and general welfare of the citizens of the city.”
It was just two weeks ago that the City Council voted unanimously to oppose a liquor license application to the state’s licensing board by the owners of a proposed strip club.
Council members said that if the board approves the club’s liquor license that it would fight all the way to the Oregon Supreme Court to keep the club from opening.
