COVINGTON — City officials will contribute up to $7,000 for a two-county study on regulating sexually-oriented businesses.

        The $42,000 study by Duncan Associates, an Austin, Texas consulting firm that specializes in zoning issues, would explore the feasibility of a multicounty “community” where businesses such as strip clubs and adult bookstores could locate. Dr. Eric Damian Kelly, a vice president of Duncan Associates, also would review existing licensing and zoning laws for dealing with sexually-oriented businesses and develop a model .

        “I strongly recommend we participate in this study,” City Manager Greg Jarvis told the members of Covington City Commission before they approved the measure by a 5-0 vote this week.

        The fact that Duncan Associates already is familiar with Covington through its review and rewrite of Covington's zoning code “is just icing on the cake,” Mr. Jarvis said.

        The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that communities must provide zones for sexually oriented businesses, no matter how undesirable residents and businesses might find them. By designating a larger area where such businesses can locate, officials in Kenton and Campbell counties — which have a total of 36 cities and two county governments — hope to balance the First Amendment rights of sexually-oriented businesses with community concerns.

        Mayor Butch Callery, who attended a recent meeting of Campbell and Kenton County mayors to discuss sexually-oriented businesses, said “it looked like a large majority of mayors were in favor of (the study).”

        Kenton County Attorney Garry Edmondson, chairman of the Sexually Oriented Business Committee, a group of Kenton and Campbell County lawyers and planning officials, has said he hopes to get enough Northern Kentucky governments to agree to share in the study's cost by month's end.

        Covington officials recently backed away from a controversial proposal to rezone an area bordering neighboring Park Hills to allow strip clubs and other sexually-oriented businesses. A similar proposed zone change along Mary Laidley Drive in south Covington has nearby businesses in the city's enterprise zone upset. That proposed zoning change will go before the Kenton County & Municipal Planning and Zoning Commission at its meeting at 6:15 p.m. today.

        “I think this is going to bring attention to the fact that all communities suffer from this problem,” Covington Commissioner Alex Edmondson said, referring to last month's opening of The Playpen club in the former Shadle's Bar on Licking Pike. The club features women dancing in pasties and G-strings.

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