ADF attorney encourages small towns to combat against adult businesses
by Allie Martin
February 21, 2007
(OneNewsNow.com) - - An attorney with the pro-family Alliance Defense Fund says many small cities and municipalities are starting to look for ways to keep adult businesses out of their communities. Recently, several Kentucky counties enacted ordinances or began considering ordinances regarding sexually oriented businesses such as adult bookstores and strip clubs.Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) senior legal counsel Mike Johnson says it is important for cities, especially smaller ones, to get laws on the books before any adult businesses open their doors. He is encouraging officials, particularly in small cities and municipalities, to be proactive when it comes to approving ordinances restricting sexually-oriented businesses.
"The problem is we actually have a new phenomenon that's been coined 'freeway porn,' and it describes the fact that a lot of the larger cities have actually passed pretty stringent regulations on the porn industry," Johnson notes. As a result, "porn operators are seeking out smaller towns and rural communities that are still located near Interstate corridors so they can still have the heavy traffic access," he explains, "but they're looking to these smaller communities to set up shop."
For this reason, the ADF attorney contends, local city officials must take steps to deal with the issue of porn before it becomes a problem. "We've spent quite a bit of time trying to remind and encourage cities to take a look at this before it's too late," he says.
"Sometimes, if one of these businesses is allowed to come in, once they set up shop, in some states they'll be grandfathered in," Johnson warns. "So it certainly behooves a local community to enact an ordinance like this," he says. "It's a very simple process."
Numerous studies exist that detail the negative secondary effects of adult bookstores, strip clubs and other sexually-oriented businesses on the areas where they are situated, Johnson notes. He says although the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that communities must allow such businesses, those communities do have the authority to regulate these establishments and decide where they can locate.
