The New Zoning Law in New York City
Is your area next?
Dear Sophie,
If you don’t know, the latest appeal of the zoning laws in NYC were lost. Is there a couple of club owners you can put me on to so I can get info for my articles. I’ll do one for you on a monthly basis as the club owners need to be informed. I talked to Michael Ross in California, a lobbyist, and they were not aware of what has been going on in NYC. I say what goes in NY goes in the rest of the country. Judging from my knowledge, if they appeal to the US Supreme Court, I don’t believe it will be successful. I am going to try to have a local trade association of adult clubs but I’m afraid it will look like an episode of Jerry Springer. Information needs to be communicated amongst the club owners in other areas of the state and the country. The upstate NY owners don’t think it can happen here. Or they didn’t think it could happen there either?
Ken
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June 4, 1998
U.S. Appeals Court Backs NYC Plan to Curb Sex Businesses
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Related Articles
Court Blocks New York Law On Pornographic Businesses (March 18)
Judge Lifts Order Blocking Sex-Shop Law (March 7)
First Store Is Padlocked Under NYC Sex-Shop Law (Sept. 20, 1997)
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By DAN BARRY
EW YORK — Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s efforts to mold New York City into a more civil metropolis received a major boost Wednesday when a federal appeals court upheld a zoning law intended to curtail and isolate the dozens of X-rated businesses in the city.
Emboldened by language in the ruling that said the law “may be enforced forthwith,” city officials quickly announced plans to dispatch inspectors to sex shops throughout the city’s five boroughs, beginning Thursday morning.
But the city officials were forced to rein in their ambitions just a few minutes later, after learning that the decision would not become official under federal court rules for up to 21 days.
That technicality gave breathing room to lawyers for the sex shop owners in their increasingly desperate attempt to block the zoning law, which bans strip clubs and X-rated book and video shops from operating within 500 feet of residential areas, schools, day care centers, houses of worship — or each other.
Following the unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in Manhattan, the lawyer for the shop owners said he would now ask the full appeals court to take up the issue. “I have never for a moment lost confidence in our constitutional claims and intend to pursue them all the way to the Supreme Court if I have to,” said Herald Price Fahringer, who represents 107 adult-entertainment business owners.
But one more delay in the protracted legal battle did not still the joy of Giuliani and his aides, or of City Council members who first proposed the ban.
Giuliani called the ruling a “particularly significant victory” in his ongoing “quality of life” campaign, and said it should silence critics who contended that the zoning law violated the First Amendment rights of owners.
“This would now be 13, 14, 15, about 16 or 17 separate judges who have looked over this plan and come to the determination that the plan is legal,” he said, referring to the series of state and federal court challenges that the law has faced since it was enacted in 1995.
In fact, the legal avenues available to the store and club owners are rapidly dwindling. While the owners can seek a hearing before the full panel of the Court of Appeals, such appeals are seldom accepted.
Their lawyers could then seek the intervention of the U.S. Supreme Court, but there is no certainty that the nation’s highest court would agree to hear the case.
City officials said the law would affect 146 of the city’s 164 X-rated businesses, although civil and criminal proceedings may delay the closings by as much as a year. “We expect that many of these establishments will realize that they have to shut down and will do so on their own,” said Randy Mastro, deputy mayor for operations. “This is the last dance for sex shops.”
But some shop owners said they would adapt, not close.
For example, Richard Kunis, the owner of Manhattan Video on West 39th Street, has spent the last several weeks building shelves and accumulating horror movies, war movies and even family-oriented movies, including “On Golden Pond,” “Oh God! Book II” and “Holiday Singalong With Mitch Miller.”
And Milton Anthony, the owner of Billy’s Topless, a bar in Chelsea, said bikinis would provide his performers with the legal cover to dance uninterrupted.
For the Giuliani administration and the Council, the issue hinged on the impact that strip clubs and adult-entertainment shops have on the city’s neighborhoods and economy, from Times Square and Chelsea to stretches of major boulevards in Queens.
“It’s a simple proposition,” Mastro said. “We want to keep sex shops away from our neighborhoods, away from our schools, away from our churches.”
But the owners of adult-entertainment businesses and several gay rights groups have framed the debate as an attempt to stifle free speech, and, as one sex shop owner said, to “Giuliani-ize the city,” eliminating or restricting legal and long-standing ventures that the mayor finds distasteful.
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By The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — A city effort to force most of New York’s X-rated businesses to move got the go-ahead Wednesday from a federal appeals court.
The dispute started with city efforts to clean up Times Square.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said all the legal issues had been sufficiently argued in state court.
The ruling opens the door for enforcement of a zoning regulation requiring sex businesses to be at least 500 feet away from each other and not be near schools or houses of worship.
As many as 146 of the city’s 164 sex businesses could be forced to move.
Strip club owners, patrons and employees argued the new zoning law violated their First Amendment rights. They took their case to federal court after the state’s highest court upheld the rule in March.
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Dear Readers,
I don't have much to say. If I wanted to point fingers, I wouldn't point at Giuliani. I would point at you. Yes, I am talking to you. You, who didn't think this whole thing matters. You, who didn't think it is worth risking getting up early in to morning, demonstrating, writing letters to editors, "being" the public opinion that stops this new wave of fascist/megalomaniac acts. You, who didn't want to be involved. Isn't that the story of your life? I remember that the same mood was present in the early 30's in Germany. When people could have just stopped the maddness. But they were too busy doing whatever they were doing... just like you. And though it didn't affect you then, next time it will affect you. And it will be too late to be involved.
Alas.
Sophie
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