Passing Sexually-Oriented Business Regulations in Your Community

Daniel Weiss

What you can do to protect your town.

Many cities and counties in America have never considered that sexually-oriented businesses (SOBs) could target their communities, but if they haven't put in place tough, constitutionally sound regulations they may be vulnerable. Once such businesses set up shop, it is much more difficult to remove them than to pass good ordinances in the first place.

Legal Restrictions

If your community is vulnerable and you want to protect it, consider these key points about SOB regulation:

1) The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that communities may not ban SOBs outright. The Court maintains that such businesses—provided they don't violate the law—have a right to exist.

2) However, the Court also ruled that communities can relegate SOBs to certain areas of town in order to mitigate their undesirable secondary effects. Hundreds of land-use studies have found that SOBs increase crime and blight and decrease property values where they are located. A community can pass an ordinance restricting such businesses to industrial areas or require that they be located a certain distance from parks, churches, schools and residential neighborhoods.

3) The Supreme Court also allows communities to pass what are known as time and manner restrictions. This type of ordinance can restrict such businesses from operating late at night (after midnight) when crime tends to increase. Also, restrictions on how such a business operates are constitutionally sound. Such regulations can include requiring background checks for all employees (to weed out convicted felons), requiring a no-touch rule for strip clubs, removing doors from "peep show" booths, prohibiting alcohol from being sold at strip clubs, or requiring such businesses to be licensed by the city.

For more information

If you'd like to take action to protect your community, Focus on the Family encourages you to seek guidance from trained attorneys specializing in these matters. For reference purposes we include the following recommendations:

Alliance Defense Fund

15100 N. 90th Street
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
Phone: 1-800-TELL-ADF
 

Law Office of Scott D. Bergthold, P.L.L.C. 
8052 Standifer Gap Rd. Suite C
Chattanooga, TN 37421

Phone: 423-899-3025

Family Policy Councils

These state-level organizations are fully independent but closely associated with the mission and aims of Focus on the Family.

Other resources

A Primer on SOB Regulations 

Daniel Weiss is the senior analyst for media and sexuality for Focus on the Family Action

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