Florida's Clay County to Un-Ban Sexually Oriented Businesses

GREEN COVE SPRINGS, Florida—As counties go, Clay County isn't very large, but then again, most Florida counties aren't. In fact, aside from the metropolitan areas of Green Cove Springs and Middleboro, the only "business" worth mentioning is the National Guard's Camp Blanding Joint Training Center—but thanks to fear of a massive lawsuit, that may change. The Clay County Board of County Commissioners is currently in the middle of hearings on a revamped adult business ordinance which would actually allow adult businesses to exist in the county, in the process overturning a longstanding law that has banned them for decades. The reason: The Supreme Court has made it clear that adult businesses may not be "zoned out" of any municipality without a very good reason, and several lawsuits have been successful in getting such zoning bans thrown out. Of course, there's a question of whether any adult business would even want to move into the county, considering that that same body, on March 25, passed both an adult "Regulatory Ordinance" (whose actual title runs to two-and-a-half of the text's 75 pages) as well as a "Public Nudity Ordinance" that doesn't so much target, say, nudity on the streets or at beaches as it does nudity in strip clubs—which also don't currently exist in the county. They're the sort of ordinances that attorney Scott Bergthold, who's the country's primary author of "community defense" ordinances, would love. "[T]he Board has reason to believe and believes that (a) when the possession, display, exhibition, distribution and sale of books, magazines, motion pictures, prints, photographs, periodicals, records, novelties and devices that depict, illustrate, describe or relate to specified sexual activities occurs, and/or (b) with the operation and maintenance of places where parts of one person are treated or encountered by rubbing, stroking, kneading or tapping by a second person, accompanied by the exposure or display of specified anatomical areas, other activities tend to accompany them that are illegal, immoral or unhealthful," reads the second "Whereas" clause, of which there are six-and-a-half pages. And in case you were wondering, "such other activities include, but are not limited to, prostitution, pandering, assignation, solicitation for prostitution, obscene, lewd and lascivious behavior, exposing minors to harmful materials, sale or possession of controlled substances, violent crimes against persons and property, and contracting and spreading of sexually transmitted diseases." Yup; it's not the businesses themselves but their alleged "secondary effects" that make the ordinances "necessary," and later, the ordinance spends about a page and a half recounting just about every lawsuit and city/county ordinance from the last 30 years that limited adult businesses' rights as alleged justification for the Regulatory Ordinance. Also, the word "morals" shows up an awful lot in both passed ordinances, thereby improperly mixing religious doctrine into secular law. Generally speaking, violations of the ordinance are punishable by fines of up to $500, but considering the number or qualifications and hoops one must jump through in order to open such a business, it's unclear whether any potential business owner will even be able to get a license to open such an establishment. And then, if the business is convicted of violating the ordinance three or more times within a two-year period—and remember, any specific act occurring on the premises may lead to more than one violation for the same act—the business's license may be suspended for 30 days, and if further violations occur, for 90 days or even 180 days. After that, the license may be revoked entirely. Beyond that, the Regulatory Ordinance prohibits even near-nudity on the business's premises, bans "straddle dancing," criminalizes workers accepting tips from customers, requires dancers to remain six feet from customers at all times, and prohibits an adult business owner from operating the business between the hours of 10 p.m. and 9 a.m. The text of the Regulatory Ordinance (.pdf) may be found here. By comparison, the Public Nudity Ordinance is tame, including the same limitations on dancers, though exempting people who must be nude "for  the  sole  purpose  of  performing  the  legal function or functions that are customarily intended to be performed within such place set apart for nudity," or when such nudity "constitutes a part of a bona fide live communication, demonstration or performance by a person wherein such nudity is expressive conduct incidental to and necessary for the conveyance or communication of a genuine message or public expression and is not a mere guise or pretense utilized to exploit the act or conduct of being nude for profit or commercial gain." Breast-feeding mothers are exempt as well. The Public Nudity Ordinance (.pdf) can be found here. One might think that after all that, it would be easy for the Board of Commissioners to vacate the previous ban on adult businesses in the county, but no. Instead, there will be a series of public hearings (called "workshops") held over the next couple of months where citizens can weigh in on the proposed ordinance—though Commission Vice Chairman Ronnie Robinson observed that only nine people came to the last workshop, and "it’s going to be the same nine that are interested in this because that is all that is there ..." Robinson, by the way, opposes the ordinance. On the other hand, Teresa Stepzinski of Jacksonville.com reported that, "Commissioner Wendell Davis made a motion to repeal the county ban on adult businesses but it failed because no other commissioner would second it." While the full text of the proposed ordinance is not yet available, some of its major points include a complete ban on such adult businesses within 2,500 feet (roughly half a mile) from an existing school, 500 feet from "an existing religious institution, group home, park, residential zoning districts or private services districts," and within 1,000 feet of another adult business. Moreover, no bars will be allowed ot open within 500 feet of an existing adult business, no new school may open with 1,500 feet of such a business, and no church, group home, park or "private services use" (whatever that is) will be allowed within 1,000 feet of the adult business. With all that, the county said it expects that, although the Commission had previously identified 28 parcels in the unincorporated areas of the county that could be used for adult venues, "We’re going to end up with 18, 19 potential sites," said "outside legal expert" Michael Kahn, adding, "If history is any indicator, there will be none."