Salisbury, MA: Letting One Adult Entertainment Shop Set Up in an Area Makes It Easy for Others to Follow

The struggle over adult-use zoning in Northampton shouldn’t be seen as just an effort to keep one porn shop from 135 King Street. When one adult entertainment business establishes itself in an area, it makes it easy for others to follow. The Boston Globe reports from Salisbury, MA:

With two adult clubs already established and a third application recently approved by the Board of Selectmen, town officials are worried that Salisbury is fast becoming a haven for such businesses, thanks to its proximity to adult entertainment nearby in New Hampshire and its access to interstate highways…

Salisbury has created a new set of zoning bylaws that control where these businesses can and cannot locate…

“We don’t want to be known as the adult entertainment capital of the state,” said town manager Michael Basque. “I think we wanted to control our destiny.”

Salisbury’s plight and the town’s approach is typical of communities throughout the North Weekly region. Wakefield, Salisbury, Saugus, Ipswich, Lynn, Georgetown, Malden, Melrose, Peabody, Revere and Everett have all passed or are in the process of passing zoning laws that would restrict where such businesses can locate…

And for towns like Salisbury, there is little that can be done to stop other adult entertainment business from setting up shop if similar uses have already been allowed, town officials have said. Salisbury currently has two nude dancing venues–the Lion’s Den and Ten’s Show Club at Salisbury Beach…

Using the collective experience of other cities and towns and making sure that what they were doing would pass muster with the state Attorney General’s Office, the [Saugus] Planning Board drew up zoning bylaws that limit adult uses to areas along the largely built-up Route 1 business corridor. The Planning Board passed the changes unanimously. Selectmen will vote on the matter Jan. 12.

“We can’t fight it,” [Planning Board member Ellen] Burns said, “so we might as well try and control it.”

In Salisbury, the new bylaws dictate that all adult entertainment establishments are prohibited from locating anywhere other than the town’s Industrial District near Interstate 95, a Commercial 2 District outside of downtown, and the Beach Commercial District.

Buildings must be 400 feet from residences and 1,000 feet from schools, churches and other adult entertainment centers…

“The whole point of this isn’t to restrict adult uses but to mitigate the negative secondary impacts of adult use,” said Marc Resnick, Salisbury’s director of planning and development. “State law has said that you don’t have to provide the most economically desirable positions but you do have to provide the most reasonable and practical location in the community.”

“Zone Laws Limit Adult Nightclubs: Area Towns, Cities Making Access Tough”, The Boston Globe, 12/28/97