(A) Purpose.
(1) The purpose of this chapter is to regulate sexually oriented businesses in order to promote the health, safety and general welfare of the citizens of the city, and to establish reasonable and uniform regulations to prevent the deleterious secondary effects of adult uses within the city.
(2) The provisions of this chapter have neither the purpose nor effect of imposing a limitation or restriction on the content of, or reasonable access to, any communicative materials, including sexually oriented materials.
(3) 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 to the United States Constitution or Article I, § 9, of the Indiana Constitution, or to deny access by the distributors and exhibitors of sexually oriented entertainment to their intended market.
(4) Neither is it the intent nor effect of this chapter to condone or legitimize the distribution of obscene material.
(B) Findings.
(1) Sexually oriented businesses, as defined herein, should be regulated.
(2) They should be segregated from one another and from houses of worship, schools, parks, and residential neighborhoods to protect the public health, welfare and safety because, inter alia, sexually oriented 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, illicit and unsanitary sexual activity, illicit drug use, decreased desirability of and negative impacts on the use of surrounding properties, blight, litter and sexual assault and exploitation.
(3) The city has a substantial government interest in preventing each of the aforementioned adverse effects.
(Ord. G-04-10, passed 3-18-2004)