CHAPTER 111: ADULT ENTERTAINMENT ESTABLISHMENTS
Section
General Provisions
   111.01   Findings, declaration of public policy and purpose
   111.02   Definitions
   111.03   Administration
   111.04   Effect and limitation
   111.05 through 111.14 Reserved
Restrictions and Operating Regulations
   111.15   Signage
   111.16   Material not to be subject to public view
   111.17   Employee age requirement
   111.18   Restricted hours
   111.19   Construction requirements
   111.20   Location restrictions
   111.21 through 111.29 Reserved
   111.30   Sale of alcoholic beverages prohibited
   111.31 through 111.34 Reserved
   111.35   Unlawful activities
Licensing Provisions
   111.36   License application; contents
   111.37   Information to be current; Director to be notified of changes
   111.38   Issuance of license
   111.39   Inspections
   111.40   Prohibited activities
   111.41   License year; license fees
   111.42   Employee license required
   111.43   License denial, suspension, revocation; hearing and appeal
   111.44   Reserved
   111.45   Scienter necessary to prove liability
   111.46   Failure of official to meet time frame not to risk applicant or licensee rights
 
   111.98   Severability
   111.99   Penalty
GENERAL PROVISIONS
§ 111.01 FINDINGS, DECLARATION OF PUBLIC POLICY AND PURPOSE.
   (A)   The Council finds it has been the experience of other communities, as well as this one, that certain adult entertainment activities which are 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 adversely affect the viability of such nearby properties for their described purposes.
   (B)   Local governments in Metro Louisville, the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the United States government have spent millions of dollars on community development and neighborhood enhancement projects within the recent past to eliminate blight and to prevent the further deterioration of Metro Louisville neighborhoods.
   (C)   The Council relies on such evidence of the adverse secondary effects of adult entertainment uses that is within the common knowledge of municipalities and is widely reported in judicial opinions, media reports, land use studies, and crime impact reports made available to the Council, several of which are set forth herein. Additionally, the Council relies on repeated judicial findings validating municipalities' reasonable reliance on this body of secondary effects evidence to support time, place, and manner regulations of sexually oriented businesses. The Council relies upon and incorporates the findings of secondary effects discussed in the following non-exhaustive list of cases: Pap's A.M. v. City of Erie, 529 U.S. 277 (2000); City of Los Angeles v. Alameda Books, Inc., 535 U.S. 425 (2002); City of Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc., 475 U.S. 41 (1986); Young v. American Mini Theatres, 427 U.S. 50 (1976); Barnes v. Glen Theatre, Inc., 501 U.S. 560 (1991); FW/PBS, Inc. v. City of Dallas, 493 U.S. 215 (1990); California v. LaRue, 409 U.S. 109 (1972); DLS, Inc. v. City of Chattanooga, 107 F.3d 403 (6th Cir. 1997); Currence v. City of Cincinnati, 2002 U.S. App. LEXIS 1258; Broadway Books v. Roberts, 642 F. Supp. 486 (E.D. Tenn. 1986); Bright Lights, Inc. v. City of Newport, 830 F. Supp. 378 (E.D. Ky. 1993); Ben's Bar, Inc. v. Village of Somerset, 316 F.3d 702 (7th Cir. 2003); Richland Bookmart v. Nichols, 137 F.3d 435 (6th Cir. 1998); Center for Fair Public Policy v. Maricopa County, 336 F.3d 1153 (9th Cir. 2003); Déjà vu v. Metro Government, 1999 U.S. App. LEXIS 535 (6th Cir. 1999); Bamon Corp. v. City of Dayton, 923 F.2d 470 (6th Cir. 1991); Triplett Grille, Inc. v. City of Akron, 40 F.3d 129 (6th Cir. 1994); O'Connor v. City and County of Denver, 894 F.2d 1210 (10th Cir. 1990); Déjà vu of Nashville, Inc., et al. v. Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, 274 F.3d 377 (6th Cir. 2001); Z.J. Gifts D-2, LLC v. City of Aurora, 136 F.3d 683 (10th Cir. 1998); ILQ Investments, Inc. v. City of Rochester, 25 F.3d 1413 (8th Cir. 1994); World Wide Video of Spokane, Inc. v. City of Spokane, 227 F. Supp. 2d 1143 (E.D. Wash. 2002); Threesome Entertainment v. Strittmather, 4 F. Supp. 2d 710 (N.D. Ohio 1998); Bigg Wolf Discount Video Sales, Inc. v. Montgomery County, 256 F. Supp. 2d 385 (D. Md. 2003); Kentucky Restaurant Concepts, Inc. v. City of Louisville and Jefferson County, 209 F. Supp. 2d 672 (W.D. Ky. 2002); Restaurant Ventures v. Lexington-Fayette Urban County Gov't, 60 S.W.3d 572 (Ct. App. Ky. 2001); Mr. B's Bar & Lounge, Inc. v. Louisville, 630 S.W.2d 564 (Ct. App. Ky. 1981).
      (1)   The Council further relies on reports concerning secondary effects occurring in and around sexually oriented businesses, including, but not limited to, Phoenix, Arizona - 1979; Houston, Texas - 1997; Indianapolis, Indiana - 1984; Amarillo, Texas - 1977; Garden Grove, California - 1991; Los Angeles, California - 1977; Whittier, California - 1978; Austin, Texas - 1986; Seattle, Washington - 1989; Tucson, Arizona - 1990; Testimony, Warner-Robins, Georgia - 2000; Newport News, Virginia - 1996; St. Cloud, Minnesota - 1994; New York Times Square study - 1994; Minnesota, State of - 1989; Phoenix, Arizona - 1995-1998; and also on findings of physical abuse from the paper entitled "Stripclubs According to Strippers: Exposing Workplace Sexual Violence," by Kelly Holsopple, Program Director, Freedom and Justice Center for Prostitution Resources, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Based on cases and reports such as these, the Council finds:
         (a)   Sexually oriented adult entertainment businesses, as a category of commercial uses, are 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, obscenity, illicit drug use and drug trafficking, negative impacts on property values, urban blight, pornographic litter, and sexual assault and exploitation.
      (b)   Sexual acts, including masturbation, oral and anal sex, sometimes occur at unregulated adult entertainment businesses, especially those which provide private or semi-private booths, rooms, or cubicles for view films, videos, or live sexually explicit shows, which acts constitute a public nuisance and pose a risk to public health through the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.
      (c)   Adult entertainment businesses should be separated from sensitive land uses to minimize the impact of their secondary effects upon such uses, and should be separated from other certain uses, such as other sexually oriented businesses and establishments licensed to sell alcoholic beverages to minimize the secondary effects associated with such uses and to prevent a concentration of sexually oriented businesses and such uses.
      (d)   Each of the foregoing negative secondary effects constitutes a harm which the Council has a substantial government interest in abating and/or preventing in the future.
   (D)   Adult entertainment activity tends to attract an undesirable clientele which discourages neighboring residents from undertaking civic improvements, causes residents and businesses to move elsewhere and frustrates attempts to attract new residences and businesses to come into an area, all of which factors contribute to a diminution of property values and to a general deterioration of neighborhoods.
   (E)   The small closet-like rooms or "booths" at adult amusement arcades in Metro Louisville and other communities have encouraged persons to loiter for the purposes of engaging in unlawful, often anonymous, sexual conduct and have encouraged lewd conduct in public places, thereby creating public nuisances and generally unsanitary and unhealthful conditions that create dangers to the public health, welfare and safety.
   (F)   The concentration of sexually explicit movies and books and sexual paraphernalia in adult entertainment establishments which also house sexually explicit movies, as well as hotel rooms rented by the hour to "couples" afforded free sexually explicit movies in the hotel room, have provided prostitutes an appealing and visible meeting place to ply their trade and have created public nuisances in otherwise respectable neighborhoods.
   (G)   Children, the family environment and residential neighborhoods suffer injury from the deleterious effects and harmful consequences resulting from the distribution of, and exposure to, certain sexually explicit items and devices. This is particularly so when such items and devices are permitted to leave a business's premises and litter the immediate family environment, neighborhood and certain areas where children are likely to be.
   (H)   The noise generated by patrons coming and going from adult entertainment establishments causes a substantial disruption to nearby residents and modest curtailment of the hours during which entertainment is offered to patrons of such establishments would afford some relief to persons living in those nearby residences without significantly interfering with the availability of adult entertainment.
   (I)   Nationally, there is extensive involvement of organized crime in the business of adult bookstores and the disclosure of persons who own, as well as the names of those persons who operate adult bookstores and other adult entertainment establishments will aid law enforcement officials in the enforcement of the federal Racketeer Influences and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) and the enforcement of the laws of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, among others, prohibiting the distribution of obscene matter, the use of minors to distribute obscene matter, the advertising of obscene material, the distribution of obscene material to minors, promoting the sale of obscenity, the use of a minor in a sexual performance, the distribution of material portraying a sexual performance by a minor, the promoting of material portraying a sexual performance by a minor and the advertising of material portraying a sexual performance by a minor and the use of minors to distribute materials portraying a sexual performance by a minor.
   (J)   The Council declares as a matter of public policy that in order to preserve surrounding neighborhoods, to prevent blight and the deterioration of the neighborhoods of Metro Louisville, protect property values, promote the return of residents and businesses to the neighborhoods, protect children from the deleterious effects of exposure to sexually explicit material and decrease the incidence of crime and juvenile delinquency, the licensing and regulation of adult entertainment establishments is a public necessity and is required in the interest of public health, safety and welfare as well as the economic and aesthetic well-being of the people.
   (K)   Purposes:
      (1)   It is the purpose of this chapter to regulate sexually oriented businesses in order to promote the health, safety, and general welfare of the citizens of Metro Louisville, and to establish reasonable and uniform regulations to prevent the deleterious secondary effects of sexually oriented businesses within Metro Louisville. The provisions of this chapter have neither the purpose nor effect of imposing a limitation or restriction on the content or reasonable access to any communicative materials, including sexually oriented materials. Similarly, it is neither the intent nor effect of this chapter to restrict or deny access by adults to sexually oriented materials protected by the First Amendment, or to deny access by the distributors and exhibitors of sexually oriented entertainment to their intended market. Neither is it the intent nor effect of this chapter to condone or legitimize the distribution of obscene material;
      (2)   To prevent the unsanitary conditions which exist at "adult amusement arcades" and to prevent health risks, including AIDs and other sexually transmitted diseases, caused by illicit and unlawful sexual relations in such public establishments;
      (3)   To protect children and the family environment from the deleterious and harmful effects of exposure to certain sexually explicit items and devices; and
      (4)   To obtain the identity of persons licensed and to be licensed for the operation of establishments selling, showing, renting or offering certain sexually explicit material or entertainment to insure proper identification of those persons responsible for the operation of such businesses so as to assist in the proper enforcement of this chapter.
   (L)   It is not the purpose of this chapter to establish community standards on obscenity nor to permit persons to engage in any activity which is in violation of law, including but not limited to, state laws pertaining to the advertising, promotion, distribution or sale of obscene matter or matters portraying a sexual performance by a minor, or state laws pertaining to the use of a minor in a sexual performance or promotion of sexual performance by a minor, or the use of a minor to distribute material portraying sexual performance by a minor.
(1994 Jeff. Code, § 111.01) (Jeff. Ord. 7-1998, passed 4-1-1998; Lou. Metro Ord. No. 50-2003, approved 4-1-2003; Lou. Metro Am. Ord. No. 21-2004, approved 3-1-2004)
Loading...