(a) Purpose and Intent. In enacting this chapter, the Middleburg Heights City Council makes the following statement of intent and findings:
(1) Sexually oriented business 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 sexually oriented business 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 sexually oriented business establishments by this City in the specified manner, and expanded authority for reasonable regulation of sexually oriented business 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 sexually oriented business 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 sexually oriented business 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 sexually oriented business establishments in the specified manner. 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 sexually oriented business 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 sexually oriented business 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.
(10) It is the intent of this Council in enacting this chapter to regulate in the specified manner sexually oriented business 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 sexually oriented business 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.
(b) Findings. 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) Sexually oriented business establishments lend themselves to ancillary unlawful and unhealthy activities that are presently uncontrolled by the operators of the establishments.
(2) Certain employees of sexually oriented business establishments, as defined in this section 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 sexually oriented business 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 sexually oriented business establishments featuring live nude or seminude dancers constitute or may constitute the offense of “engaging in prostitution” under R.C. § 2907.25.
(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 sexually oriented business establishments for the purpose of engaging in sexual activity within the premises of those sexually oriented business 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 sexually oriented business 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 Zoning Code are reasonably believed to be relevant to said secondary effects.
(11) Sexually oriented business 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.
(c) Location Standards.
(1) It shall be unlawful to establish, operate, or cause to be operated a sexually oriented business in Middleburg Heights unless the sexually oriented business is located at least 1,320 feet from another sexually oriented business.
(2) It shall be unlawful to establish, operate, or cause to be operated a sexually oriented business in Middleburg Heights, unless the sexually oriented business is located at least 1,000 feet from the following “sensitive uses”:
A. One thousand feet from the closest boundary of any residential zoning district or parcel containing a residential land use.
B. One thousand feet from any child day-care center, hospital, hotel, public or private parks and outdoor recreation, religious institution, public use facility, residential care facility, public or private educational institution or senior independent living community uses in or adjacent to the City, whether or not such use is conforming or nonconforming, in or adjacent to the City.
C. One thousand feet from all parcels containing a business that is licensed to serve alcohol and is not primarily engaged in the sale and service of food at the premises.
(3) Measurement standards.
A. The measure of distance shall be from the outermost wall of the structure or proposed structure of the sexually oriented business that is nearest to the applicable sensitive use or other sexually oriented business establishment as set forth in this Section, to the property line of the applicable sensitive use or other sexually oriented business establishment, along the shortest possible straight line course, without regard to intervening structures or topography considerations.
B. Where a sexually oriented business is located within a multi-tenant structure, the measurement shall be to or from the closest part of the tenant space occupied by the sexually oriented business.
(Ord. 2022-24. Passed 5-24-22.)