After reviewing various studies, including the US Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography (1986), The Summary of Studies Relating to Secondary Effects of Adult Businesses, Garden Grove, CA (1991), The Regulation of Adult Establishments in North Carolina (1996) on the secondary impacts of adult businesses, the Dare County Board of Commissioners does hereby find:
(A) Businesses may want to open within the unincorporated portions of Dare County where books, magazines, motion pictures, prints, photographs, video cassettes, periodicals, records, novelties and/or devises that depict, illustrate, describe or relate to specified sexual activities are displayed, exhibited, possessed, distributed or sold.
(B) Businesses may want to open within the unincorporated portions of Dare County:
(1) Where the superficial tissues of one person are manipulated, rubbed, stroked, kneaded or tapped by another person, who is not a licensed medical professional, accompanied by the display or exposure of specified anatomical areas as defined hereinafter.
(2) Where entertainers, employees, escorts, or other individuals as defined hereinafter, perform or are presented while displaying or exposing any specified anatomical areas.
(3) Where straddle dancing as defined hereinafter occurs.
(C) The activities described in divisions (A) and (B) are subject to regulation by Dare County in the interest of public health, safety, and general welfare of the residents and visitors of Dare County.
(D) There is a direct relationship between the display or depiction of specified anatomical areas and an increase in criminal activities, disturbances of the peace and the good order of the county. The concurrence of these activities is hazardous to the public health, safety and welfare of the persons in attendance and tends to depreciate the value of neighboring and adjoining properties and harm the economic welfare of the county as a whole. These secondary impacts are adverse to the quality of life, economic livelihood, and the overall community environment of Dare County.
(E) When the activities in divisions (A) and (B) are presented in businesses, other activities that are illegal or unhealthy tend to accompany them, concentrate around them, and be aggravated by them. Such other activities include but are not limited to prostitution; solicitation for prostitution; lewd and lascivious behavior; possession, distribution, and transportation of obscene materials; sale or possession of controlled substances; and violent crimes against persons and property.
(F) When the activities in divisions (A) and (B) are present in businesses, they tend to blight neighborhoods, adversely affect neighboring businesses, lower property values, foster an atmosphere that promotes crime, and ultimately lead other residents and commercial establishments to relocate.
(G) Physical contact within businesses at which the activities described in divisions (A) and (B) occur between employees exhibiting specified anatomical areas and customers poses a threat to the health of both and may lead to the spread of communicable diseases and social diseases.
(H) The concern over the spread of communicable diseases and social diseases is a legitimate health concern of the county which demands the regulation of adult businesses in order to protect the public health, safety and welfare, of the citizens and visitors of the county.
(I) The ownership and/or the management of an extensive amount of land in the county by public agencies results in a unique environment that resembles a national park or federal reserve. The Alligator River national Wildlife Refuge, the Navy bombing range, the Fort Raleigh/Lost Colony/Elizabethan Gardens complex, the NC Seafood Industrial Park in Wanchese, the Jockey's Ridge State Park, the Wright Brothers National Monument, the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, the Pea Island Wildlife Refuge, the Buxton Woods Coastal Preserve, the Buxton and Oregon Inlet Coast Guard bases, the US Army Corps of Engineers Research Pier in Duck, the Kitty Hawk Woods Coastal Reserve, and the Nags Head Woods/Nature Conservancy Reserve combine to place almost 80% of the land area of Dare County into public ownership. Additional public lands are also managed by the Dare County Board of Education with school campuses located in Kitty Hawk, Kill Devil Hill, Buxton, and Manteo. The remaining 20% of the land area in private ownership must accommodate every other residential, commercial, and industrial land use and therefore land zoned for adult businesses internal and external to Dare County must serve the needs of all of the county. The Hampton Roads metropolitan area, northeastern North Carolina, and the incorporated areas of the county provide sufficient access to adult-oriented businesses for the residents of unincorporated Dare County.
(J) Competition for the use of the existing privately owned land in the county is so keen that the use of the land by a business that historically generates negative cumulative and secondary impacts is considered a non-essential land use. Therefore, other land uses that do not generate negative cumulative and secondary impacts are a higher priority for the land use allotment and necessitates that adult businesses be viewed from an umbrella or regional perspective.
(Prior Code, § 112.01) (Ord. passed 7-6-1999)