Sunday, February 07, 1999
Heat turned up for adult shops
Butler prepares to approve zoning limits
BY STEVE KEMME
The Cincinnati Enquirer
HAMILTON — Regulations that would restrict the location of sexually oriented businesses in six townships controlled by Butler County zoning could receive final approval in about two months.
The county commissioners tentatively approved the regulations last week. The regulations, which would restrict sexually oriented businesses to areas zoned for industrial use, will go through a public hearing process before the commissioners make a final decision.
The proposal is similar to one approved by the Warren County commissioners last year.
It would keep adult video stores, clubs with topless or nude dancing and other sexually oriented businesses out of residential and commercial areas in Ross, Oxford, Milford, Hanover, Madison and Lemon townships.
David Fehr, a county planner who led the effort to develop the zoning proposal, said he feels confident the regulations could stand up to a legal challenge.
“We'll all pretty comfortable with it,” he said. “We tried to cover as many loopholes as we could think of.”
The impetus for the regulations began with Butler County Citizens Against Pornography, a group that formed in 1997 in opposition to two video stores in Millville that rent and sell adult videos.
County regulations have banned such businesses. But legal experts told county officials that those regulations are too general and would never hold up in court.
As a result, the county developed these new regulations. Last fall, the commissioners reviewed the regulations and asked county planners to have them reviewed by a couple of legal foundations specializing in adult entertainment laws.
The foundations suggested a few minor changes in the language, Mr. Fehr said.
The regulations will be discussed at a public hearing before the Butler County Planning Commission at 3 p.m. Tuesday in the third-floor hearing room of the county administration building, 130 High St.
A second hearing will be held before the Butler County Rural Zoning Commission, but no date has been set.
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