By SUE SUCHYTA
Sunday Times Newspapers
RIVERVIEW – The City Council studied a Planning Commission recommendation to move adult-regulated use business zoning from the general business district to a general industrial area of the city.
Adult-regulated use businesses include adult bookstores and supply stores, adult movie theaters, cabarets and live stage performance venues, adult model studios, non-medical massage parlors and other businesses with areas demonstrating sexual activities.
The current business districts are on Sibley west of Quarry, Quarry south of Hale, and Pennsylvania Road west of Fort. The general industrial district is east of Krause and Electric to the river, and from Pennsylvania to Sibley, the city’s northern and southern boundaries.
At the May 9 study session Community Development Director David Scurto said current zoning requires adult-regulated use businesses to be 1,500 feet from any other similar business, or a home, church, park or school.
Scurto said no residents have complained about the current location of adult businesses, but a future business could pose a problem.
“I see someone coming in and if they wanted to push the matter, and say they ‘meet all the regulations, and give us approval,’ I see that as being an issue,” Scurto said.
Scurto said most communities space out adult businesses to obscure locations, and that it is easier to do that than to try to prevent them from establishing a business at all within the city.
“If you don’t allow them to go in, the judge will allow them to go in, and they will set the criteria that they will go in under,” Scurto said.
The council meets at 7:30 p.m. the first and third Monday of each month to conduct business and vote on proposals, with a 7 p.m. pre-meeting session. Study sessions, which are non-voting, are held on Mondays when the council is not in formal session.
(Sue Suchyta can be reached at [email protected].)