The Board of Commissioners for the City of Bowling Green, based on evidence concerning the adverse secondary effects of sexually explicit entertainment activities on the community presented in hearings and reports, in findings incorporated in numerous cases heard by the United States Supreme Court and in studies in many communities around the country, including but not limited to Dallas, Texas; Tucson, Arizona; Newport News, Virginia; Garden Grove, California; and Newport, Kentucky finds that:
a. Certain sexually explicit entertainment activities which are or may become located near areas zoned for residential use, near schools and public parks, and near malls and similar open spaces that cater to use by family groups and children would adversely affect the viability of such nearby properties for such purposes;
b. The City of Bowling Green and the United States Government have spent millions of dollars on community development and neighborhood enhancement projects over the past years to attempt to eliminate blight and to further prevent deterioration of the city's neighborhoods;
c. Certain sexually explicit entertainment activities, because of the conditions of their operations, have or may contribute to an increased incidence of crime and juvenile delinquency, particularly when such activities are located in close proximity to one another;
d. Certain sexually explicit entertainment facilities, particularly through outside displays, tend to attract undesirable clientele that discourage neighborhood residents from undertaking civic improvements and cause residents and businesses to move elsewhere and/or may frustrate attempts to attract new residents and businesses to come into a particular area, all of which factors contribute to a diminution of property values and to a general deterioration of the city's neighborhoods;
e. The establishment of small closet-like rooms or booths at sexually explicit amusement facilities in the city may encourage persons to loiter for illegitimate purposes and may encourage lewd conduct in public places, thereby creating a public nuisance and a danger to health and safety, including the spread of communicable diseases;
f. The concentration of sexually explicit movies, books and sexual paraphernalia in the City, the establishment of businesses that house sexually explicit movies and hotel rooms which may be rented by the hour that offer free sexually explicit movies in the room have provided prostitutes an appealing and visible meeting place to ply their trade, and this has and may create public nuisances and may create supermarkets of sex in otherwise respectable City neighborhoods;
g. The value of free expression in a free society can be protected by affording an opportunity for products and services to be sold at distinct and separate locations where such goods and services will be just as available to the public wishing to pay for them, but with dramatically less deleterious effect on abutting neighborhoods;
h. Some video cassette rental outlets have or may become engaged in the rental and distribution of movies which are distinguished or characterized by an emphasis on sexual activities as hereinafter defined as a principal portion of their business activity, requiring that such establishments be licensed and regulated as sexually explicit entertainment establishments in order to protect the City's neighborhoods from blight and in order to protect children from the deleterious effects of exposure to sexually explicit portrayals on jackets in which such movies are packaged;
i. The noise generated by patrons coming and going from sexually explicit entertainment activity establishments may cause a substantial disruption to nearby residents and a modest curtailment of the hours during which entertainment is offered to patrons coming and going from such establishments would afford some relief to persons residing nearby without significantly interfering with the availability of the offered entertainment therein;
j. Sexually explicit entertainment establishments which may have integrated several forms of sexually explicit entertainment in one business premise have had a greater blighting effect on surrounding land uses than have establishments which engage in only one form of sexually explicit entertainment;
k. The regulation of escort services providing sexually explicit services will deter prostitution and public indecency and will secure the public health and safety of the City; and,
l. Nationally there is extensive involvement of organized crime in the business of sexually explicit entertainment activities which is regulated herein and that the disclosure of the names of persons who own, as well as the names of the persons who operate such sexually explicit bookstores and other sexually explicit entertainment establishments would aid law enforcement officials in the enforcement of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), as well as the enforcement of the laws of the state prohibiting the distribution of obscene matter, use of minors to distribute obscene matter, advertising of obscene matter, distribution of obscene matter to minors, promoting sale of obscenity, use of a minor in a sexual performance, distribution of portrayal of sexual performance by a minor, promotion of material portraying a sexual performance by a minor, and advertising of material portraying a sexual performance by a minor, and use of a minor to distribute material portraying a sexual performance by a minor.
(Ord. BG98-19, 5/5/98; Ord. BG2002-57, 12/3/2002)