Article I. General Provisions
5.20.010 Purpose and findings.
(A) Purpose. It is the purpose of this chapter to regulate sexually oriented businesses in order to promote the health, safety, morals, and general welfare of the citizens of the City, and to establish reasonable and uniform regulations to prevent the deleterious location and concentration of sexually oriented businesses within the City. The provisions of this chapter have neither the purpose nor effect of imposing a limitation or restriction on the content of any communicative materials, including sexually oriented materials. Similarly, it is not the intent nor effect of this chapter to restrict or deny access by adults to sexually oriented materials protected by the First Amendment, or to deny access by the distributors and exhibitors of sexually oriented entertainment to their intended market. Neither is it the intent nor effect of this chapter to condone or legitimize the distribution of obscene material.
(B) Findings. Based on evidence of the adverse secondary effects of adult uses presented in reports made available to the City Council, and on findings, interpretations, and narrowing constructions incorporated in the cases and materials made available to the City Council, including Pap’s A.M. v. City of Erie, 529 U.S. 277 (2000); City of Los Angeles v. Alameda Books, Inc., 122 S. Ct. 1728 (2002); City of Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc., 475 U.S. 41 (1986); Young v. American Mini Theatres, 426 U.S. 50 (1976); Barnes v. Glen Theatre, Inc., 501 U.S. 560 (1991); FW/PBS, Inc. v. City of Dallas, 493 U.S. 215 (1990); California v. LaRue, 409 U.S. 109 (1972); BGHA, Inc. v. City of Universal City, TX, No. 02-50220 (5th Cir., 2003); Baby Dolls Topless Saloons, Inc. v. City of Dallas, 2002 U.S. App. LEXIS 12202 (5th Cir., June 20, 2002); LLEH, Inc. v. Wichita County, 289 F.3d 358 (5th Cir., 2002); Hang On, Inc. v. City of Arlington, 65 F.3d 1248 (5th Cir., 1995); Woodall v. City of El Paso, 49 F.3d 1120 (5th Cir., 1995); J & B Entertainment, Inc. v. City of Jackson, 152 F.3d 362 (5th Cir., 1998); SDJ, Inc. v. City of Houston, 837 F.2d 1268 (5th Cir., 1988); TK’s Video, Inc. v. Denton County, 24 F.3d 705 (5th Cir., 1994); Lagrange Trading Co. v. Nicolosi, 1991 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3551 (E.D. La. 1991); Vonderhaar v. City of St. Tammany, 633 So. 2d 217 (La. Ct App. 1993); Liberto v. Rapides City City Council, 667 So. 2d 552 (La. Ct. App. 1995); City of Gretna v. Russland Enterprises, Inc., 564 So. 2d 367 (La. Ct. App. 1990); and other cases; and on testimony to Congress in 136 Cong. Rec. S 8987; 135 Cong. Rec. S 14519; 135 Cong. Rec. S 5636; 134 Cong. Rec. E 3750; and reports of secondary effects occurring in and around sexually oriented businesses, including, but not limited to, Phoenix, Arizona – 1984; Minneapolis, Minnesota – 1980; Houston, Texas – 1997; Indianapolis, Indiana – 1984; Amarillo, Texas – 1977; Garden Grove, California – 1991; Los Angeles, California – 1977; Whittier, California – 1978; Austin, Texas – 1986; Seattle, Washington – 1989; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma – 1986; Cleveland, Ohio – 1977; and Dallas, Texas – 1997; St. Croix County, Wisconsin – 1993; Bellevue, Washington – 1998; Newport News, Virginia – 1996: New York Times Square study – 1994; Phoenix, Arizona – 1995-98; and also on findings of physical abuse from the paper entitled Stripclubs According to Strippers: Exposing Workplace Sexual Violence, by Kelly Holsopple, Program Director, Freedom and Justice Center for Prostitution Resources, Minneapolis, Minnesota; and from Sexually Oriented Businesses: An Insider’s View, by David Sherman, presented to the Michigan House Committee on Ethics and Constitutional Law, Jan. 12, 2000; and the Report of the Attorney General’s Working Group on the Regulation of Sexually Oriented Businesses (June 6, 1989; State of Minnesota); the City Council finds:
(1) Sexually oriented businesses lend themselves to ancillary unlawful and unhealthy activities that are presently uncontrolled by the unlicensed operators of the establishments. Further, there is presently no mechanism in this City to make the owners and operators of these establishments responsible for the activities that occur on their premises.
(2) Some employees of unregulated sexually oriented businesses defined in this chapter as adult theaters and cabarets engage in higher incidence of certain types of illicit sexual behavior than employees of other establishments.
(3) Sexual acts, including masturbation and oral and anal sex, occur at unregulated sexually oriented businesses, especially those which provide private or semi-private booths or cubicles for viewing films, videos, or live sex shows.
(4) Offering and providing unregulated space encourages such activities, which creates unhealthy conditions.
(5) Some persons frequent certain adult theaters, adult arcades, and other sexually oriented businesses for the purpose of engaging in sex within the premises of such sexually oriented businesses, or for the purpose of purchasing or selling illicit drugs.
(6) Numerous communicable diseases may be spread by activities occurring in sexually oriented businesses, including, but not limited to, syphilis, gonorrhea, human immunodeficiency virus infection (HIV-AIDS), genital herpes, hepatitis salmonella, Campylobacter and shigella infections, chlamydial, myoplasmal and ureoplasmal infections, trichomoniasis and chancroid.
(7) According to research from the Kaiser Family Foundation, an estimated 650,000 to 900,000 Americans are infected with HIV. The number of new HIV infections occurring each year is now about 41,000. Men and women of all races are most likely to be infected by sexual contact.
(8) As of December 2004 there were 9,320 reported AIDS cases in Arizona with 114 reported cases in Yuma County. As of February 2008 there were 12,677 reported cases of HIV/AIDS in Arizona and 153 cases in Yuma County according to the Arizona Department of Health Services.
(9) The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that as many as one in three people with HIV/AIDS do not know they are infected.
(10) The number of cases of early (less than one year) syphilis in the United States reported annually has risen, with 33,613 cases reported in 1982 and 45,200 through November of 1990. Between 2001 and 2002, the number of reported primary and secondary syphilis cases increased 12.4%. According to the 2009 annual report concerning sexually transmitted diseases in Arizona as made by the Arizona Department of Health Services. Arizona had a rate of 232 cases per 100,000 population for primary and secondary (P&S) syphilis.
(11) The number of cases of gonorrhea in the United States reported annually remains at a high level, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that more than 700,000 persons in the U.S. get new gonorrheal infections each year. Only about half of these infections are reported. According to the 2009 Annual Report concerning Sexually Transmitted Diseases in Arizona as made by the Arizona Department of Health Services there were 3,251 gonorrhea cases in Arizona.
(12) The Surgeon General of the United States in his report of October 22, 1986, has advised the American public that AIDS and HIV infection may be transmitted through sexual contact, intravenous drug abuse, exposure to infected blood and blood components, and from an infected mother to her newborn.
(13) According to the best scientific evidence, AIDS and HIV infection, as well as syphilis and gonorrhea, are principally transmitted by sexual acts. See, e.g., Findings of U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
(14) Sanitary conditions in some sexually oriented businesses are unhealthy, in part, because the activities conducted there are unhealthy, and, in part, because of the unregulated nature of the activities and the failure of the owners and the operators of the facilities to self-regulate those activities and maintain those facilities.
(15) Numerous studies and reports have determined that semen is found in the areas of sexually oriented businesses where persons view adult oriented films.
(16) The findings noted in subsection (B)(1) through (15) of this section raise substantial governmental concerns.
(17) Sexually oriented businesses have operational characteristics that should be reasonably regulated in order to protect those substantial governmental concerns.
(18) A reasonable licensing procedure is an appropriate mechanism to place the burden of that reasonable regulation on the owners and the operators of the sexually oriented businesses. Further, the a licensing procedure will place a heretofore nonexistent incentive on the operators to see that the sexually oriented business is run in a manner consistent with the health, safety and welfare of its patrons and employees, as well as the citizens of the City. It is appropriate to require reasonable assurances that the licensee is the actual operator of the sexually oriented business, fully in possession and control of the premises and activities occurring therein.
(19) Removal of doors on adult booths and requiring sufficient lighting on premises with adult booths advances a substantial governmental interest in curbing the illegal and unsanitary sexual activity occurring in adult theaters.
(20) Requiring licensees of sexually oriented businesses to keep information regarding current employees and certain past employees will help reduce the incidence of certain types of criminal behavior by facilitating the identification of potential witnesses or suspects and by preventing minors from working in the establishments.
(21) The disclosure of certain information by those persons ultimately responsible for the day-to-day operation and maintenance of the sexually oriented business, where such information is substantially related to the significant governmental interest in the operation of the uses, will aid in preventing the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and will prevent the further secondary effects of dissemination of illegal obscenity, child pornography and, to minors, materials harmful to them.
(22) It is desirable in the prevention of the spread of communicable diseases to obtain a limited amount of information regarding certain employees who may engage in the conduct which this chapter is designed to prevent or who are likely to be witnesses to such activity.
(23) The fact that an applicant for an adult use has been convicted of a sexually related crime leads to the rational assumption that the applicant may engage in that conduct in contravention of this chapter.
(24) The barring of these individuals from employment in sexually oriented businesses for a specified period of years serves to prevent distribution of illegal material, to prevent conduct which leads to the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases, and to preclude the establishment of criminal enterprises within the City.
(25) The general welfare, health, morals and safely of the citizens of the City will be promoted by the enactment of this chapter. (Ord. 289 § 1, passed 12-8-2010; Res. 908 § 1, passed 12-8-2010. Code 1982 § 7-4-01. Code 2012 § 113.01.)