(a) In enacting this chapter, the Brunswick City Council makes the following statement of intent and findings:
(1) Adult entertainment establishments require special supervision from the public safety agencies of the City in order to protect and preserve the health, safety, morals, and welfare of the patrons and employees of the businesses as well as the citizens of the City.
(2) This Council finds that adult entertainment establishments are frequently used for unlawful sexual activities, including prostitution and sexual liaisons of a casual nature.
(3) The concern over sexually transmitted diseases is a legitimate health concern of this City that demands reasonable regulation of adult entertainment establishments by this City in the specified manner, and expanded authority for reasonable regulation of adult entertainment establishments by local governments, in order to protect the health and well-being of the citizens.
(4) Minimal regulations enacted by this City are a legitimate and reasonable means of accountability to ensure that operators of adult entertainment establishments comply with reasonable regulations and to ensure that operators do not knowingly allow their establishments to be used as places of illegal sexual activity or solicitation.
(5) There is convincing documented evidence that adult entertainment establishments, because of their very nature, have a deleterious effect on both the existing businesses around them and the surrounding residential areas adjacent to them, cause increased crime, particularly in the overnight hours, and downgrade property values.
(6) This Council desires to minimize and control these adverse effects by regulating adult entertainment establishments in the specified manner. And by minimizing and controlling these adverse effects, this Council seeks to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the citizenry; protect the citizens from increased crime; preserve the quality of life; preserve the property values and character of surrounding neighborhoods; and deter the spread of urban blight.
(7) This Council has determined that current local zoning and other locational criteria do not adequately protect the health, safety, and general welfare of the people of this City and that expanded regulation of adult entertainment establishments is necessary.
(8) It is not the intent of this Council in enacting this act to suppress or authorize the suppression of any speech activities protected by the First Amendment, but to enact content-neutral statutes that address the secondary effects of adult entertainment establishments.
(9) It is not the intent of this Council to condone or legitimize the distribution of obscene material, and this Council recognizes that state and federal law prohibits the distribution of obscene materials and expects and encourages state law enforcement officials to enforce state obscenity statutes against any such illegal activities in this state.
(b) It is the intent of this Council in enacting this chapter to regulate in the specified manner adult entertainment establishments in order to promote the health, safety, morals, and general welfare of the citizens of this City and establish reasonable regulations to prevent the deleterious secondary effects of adult entertainment establishments within this City. The provisions of this chapter have neither the purpose nor effect of imposing a limitation or restriction on the content of any communicative materials, including sexually oriented materials. Similarly, it is not the intent of this Council in enacting this chapter to restrict or deny, or authorize the restriction or denial of, access by adults to sexually oriented materials protected by the First Amendment, or to deny, or authorize the denial of, access by the distributors and exhibitors of adult entertainment and adult materials to their intended market. Neither is it the intent nor effect of this Council in enacting this chapter to condone or legitimize the distribution or exhibition of obscene material.
(c) Based on evidence concerning the adverse secondary effects of adult uses on communities presented in hearings and in reports made available to the legislature and subsequently adopted by the Ohio General Assembly as findings under Section 3 of House Bill 23, this Council finds:
(1) Adult entertainment establishments lend themselves to ancillary unlawful and unhealthy activities that are presently uncontrolled by the operators of the establishments.
(2) Certain employees of adult entertainment establishments, as defined in this Ordinance as adult theaters and cabarets, engage in a higher incidence of certain types of illicit sexual behavior than employees of other establishments.
(3) Sexual acts, including masturbation and oral and anal sex, occur at adult entertainment establishments, especially those that provide private or semiprivate booths or cubicles for viewing films, videos, or live sex shows. The “couch dances” or “lap dances” that frequently occur in adult entertainment establishments featuring live nude or seminude dancers constitute or may constitute the offense of “engaging in prostitution” under Section 2907.25 of the Revised Code.
(4) Offering and providing private or semi-private booths or cubicles encourages such activities, which creates unhealthy conditions.
(5) Persons frequent certain adult theaters, adult arcades, and other adult entertainment establishments for the purpose of engaging in sexual activity within the premises of those adult entertainment establishments.
(6) Numerous communicable diseases may be spread by activities occurring in sexually oriented businesses, including, but not limited to, syphilis, gonorrhea, human immunodeficiency virus infection (HIV- AIDS), genital herpes, hepatitis salmonella, campylobacter and shigella infections, chlamydial, myoplasmal and ureoplasmal infections, trichomoniasis, and chancroid.
(7) Sanitary conditions in some adult entertainment establishments are unhealthy, in part, because the activities conducted there are unhealthy, and, in part, because of the unregulated nature of the activities and the failure of the owners and the operators of the facilities to self-regulate those activities and maintain those facilities.
(8) Sexually oriented businesses, as a category of commercial uses, are often associated with a wide variety of adverse secondary effects including, but not limited to, personal and property crimes, prostitution, potential spread of disease, lewdness, public indecency, illicit drug use and drug trafficking, negative impacts on surrounding properties, urban blight, litter and sexual assault and exploitation.
(9) Illegal and unsanitary acts involving nudity, including lewd conduct, masturbation, oral and anal sex, occur at unregulated sexually oriented businesses, including those businesses which provide private or semi-private rooms, booths, or cubicles for viewing films, videos or live performances.
(10) Each of the foregoing negative secondary effects constitutes a harm which this City has a substantial government interest in preventing and/or abating. This substantial governmental interest in preventing secondary effects, which is this City’s rationale for this chapter, exists independent of any comparative analysis between sexually oriented and non-sexually oriented businesses. Additionally, this City’s interest in regulating sexually oriented businesses extends to preventing future secondary effects of either current or future sexually oriented businesses that may located in this City. The City finds that the cases and documentation relied on in this Ordinance are reasonably believed to be relevant to said secondary effects.
(11) Adult entertainment establishments have operational characteristics that require or subject them to reasonable government regulation in order to protect those substantial governmental concerns.
(12) The enactment of this chapter will promote the general welfare, health, morals, and safety of the citizens of this City.
(Ord. 44-15. Passed 7-13-15.)