From The New York Times, “Sex-Related Shops Make Comeback Near Times Sq.”, 3/15/05…
Ten years after Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani declared war on Times Square’s X-rated peep shows, strip joints and video stores, shops selling sexually explicit materials have slowly begun to creep back into the area, adroitly exploiting loopholes in the law–and property-owners’ demand for high-paying tenants–to stage their comeback…
Once sex shops begin to move in, Mr. [Tom] Tompkins [president of the Times Square Alliance] said, they can set in motion a downward spiral. “More adult establishments on a street depresses the rents legitimate businesses are willing to pay,” he said, which makes it even harder for owners to find other high-paying tenants…
And they can do it more easily, because the Giuliani-era zoning laws were substantially watered down by court challenges during the late 1990’s. Today, any store with at least 60 percent non-X-rated merchandise is not technically considered an ”adult entertainment” business under the law.
“If they stock their shelves with enough copies of ‘Bambi’, they can come within compliance,” said John Feinblatt, the city’s criminal justice coordinator.
Since stores that obey the 60/40 rule are not subject to the rules restricting sex-related businesses, they are free not only to open but to cluster–that is, open near each other — making the law a “close to impossible thing to enforce,” Mr. Feinblatt said.
Perhaps the biggest such cluster is on Eighth Avenue, where business was brisk on a recent Friday afternoon…
A few years ago, Mr. [Bill] Daley left his job as head of the Mayor’s Office of Midtown Enforcement–where, in 17 years, he learned more than he really wanted to know about the etiquette of back-store peep shows, subgenres of explicit movies and types of sex toys–to work at the garment district’s revival effort, the Fashion Center Business Improvement District…
“Just when we were recovering from globalization, these guys started moving in,” Mr. Daley said, referring the garment district. “And they are discouraging new development.” One of the stores, he said, used to have a sign out front advertising it as “Red Light District”.
This article just proves how stupid and futile zoning with 1,000 square foot, 60/40, etc. rules are with respect to mitigating the secondary effects. Give it up and start thinking about different approaches to the problems!
To me, it suggests that many porn merchants are determined to evade the spirit of laws and ignore the concerns of the community. If businesspeople don’t take some responsibility, the community will indeed impose ever more strict rules. I’d prefer it not be this way. Regulation can be a clumsy tool, but some heedless operators are leaving the community with no choice.
Council president Michael Bardsley said Thursday that for him, a lack of civic responsbility on the part of certain businesspeople is why he’s backing the adult use zoning currently under consideration. If law is the only thing they respect, that’s what they’re going to get.
By all means, I encourage you to attend Sustainable Northampton meetings to discuss quality planning for the city. That will take time, however, a luxury that operators like Capital Video are not giving us.
If in time we do come up with a better regulatory scheme for Northampton, the City Council can consider it then. In the meantime, we need to address the present risks with tools already in use in Massachusetts.
That’s balony, Adam. There’s no grandfathering under MA law for adult establishments, so there is no need to rush through bad legislation. And I have started the discussion re alternative means to mitigate secondary effects in my missive, The Real Challenge. If the council decided to put off action for alternative measures to be consider, then I’d have time to research other measures that have worked elsewhere, but fanatics like you are pressuring the council to act now. Shame (dare I say?) on you!
Yours/AC
We initiated public discussions of adult-use zoning in July. At this point, the mayor, the city council, and many others in Northampton have been thinking it over for months. The council is proposing to use legislative tools that have been operating in Massachusetts for many years. If they’ve made any modification, it’s to make more room for expression than the law requires. This is not hasty, untested legislation.
I asked you on the radio recently if you could cite other cities that had zoning regimes you preferred and Northampton could model itself after. You said you were not ready to do that. My impression is that you mean well, but your ideas are unformed, not well supported by precedent, and it would take months, perhaps years of research before you could present Northampton with a clear plan to consider.
As Wayne Feiden and Northampton’s other planners know, urban planning is complex and challenging. The city council is wise to adhere to precedent and use well-tested legislative tools in the area of adult-use zoning, where the consequences are known. We know that adult-use zoning protects residential neighborhoods and does not lead to increasing censorship, so that’s a reasonable tool to use at this point. Someone might develop a better tool down the line, and then the council can go with that.
By the way, it absolutely does matter if the city is slow and allows Capital Video to begin operations at 135 King Street. Why do you think their attorney, Michael Pill, is prodding the city with charges of stalling? He’s already claiming Capital Video has “vested zoning rights” (which is false). Do you really think Capital Video wants to give Northampton lots of time to discuss the issues?
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