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Massage Parlors

Massage parlors won’t rub W. Rockhill the wrong way

Keep it clean.

That’s the message West Rockhill Township officials have for anybody who wants to run an adult entertainment or massage business.

The township has existing zoning rules for adult entertainment, but those are about 20 years old and were written for the world of the 1970’s and ‘80’s, Mary Eberle, township solicitor, said.

“Now there’s other adult uses that people try to incorporate into businesses,” Eberle said.

The proposed new rules are the same as those in a planned update to the township’s entire zoning code, but will be voted on before the full update, she said.

“We sense there’s a potential for vulnerability, so the sooner we get it, the better,” West Rockhill Township Board of Supervisors Chairman Donald Duvall said at the Jan. 20 township meeting.

Warwick Township is currently in a legal battle over a business that wants to add adult entertainment and in recent years there have been legal battles over a strip club that opened and has since closed in Milford Township, which borders West Rockhill to the north.

Under state laws, towns must allow adult businesses within the municipality, but can put restrictions on operations and locations.

West Rockhill’s proposed update says adult entertainment businesses must be at least 2,000 feet apart from one another and at least 1,000 feet away from residential, educational, religious or institutional uses. No one younger than 18 is allowed in the building. The business can only be open between the hours of 10 a.m. and midnight. Parking areas must be in front of the building and lit during nighttime business hours. Activities and displays inside cannot be visible from outside.

The businesses are allowed as a special exception within the planned industrial zoning district, most of which is in the State Road (Route 152) area in the southern section of West Rockhill.

The proposed new rules for massage parlors are not part of the zoning code.

“That’s a health and safety ordinance,” Eberle said.

This will be West Rockhill’s first massage parlor regulations, she said, and sets rules for operators to “keep the place clean, make sure the people are licensed, run a decent establishment.”

One of the reasons for the rules, according to the proposed ordinance, is that massage businesses “frequently operate as houses of prostitution.”

Everyone giving massages at the business must be licensed. No license will be given to a massage business in which the owners or prospective employees listed on the application have been convicted of, entered a guilty plea to, or have charges pending for sexual misconduct. Price rates for services must be posted. An owner or manager must be on duty at all times when the business is open. Those giving massages must be fully clothed in opaque clothing covering the body from the shoulders to no more than six inches above the knee. Massage business employees are not allowed to offer to or to have physical contact with customer’s genitals or sexual parts.

If male and female customers are simultaneously served, there must be clearly marked separate facilities. Only white lighting is allowed in rooms in which massages are given. Doors to massage rooms must not be able to be locked. Stuffed or upholstered furniture, beds and mattresses are not allowed in massage rooms.

No one younger than 18 is allowed at a massage business. Eating or drinking at the business is prohibited. Massages must be given between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m.

Massage technicians must wash their hands immediately before and after giving a massage. Instruments cannot be reused unless disinfected after each use. Facilities must be kept in good repair and clean and sanitary.

Licensed medical facilities and school athletic programs in which coaches or trainers give massages are not classified as massage establishments. Barbershop or beauty salons in which massages are limited to parts of the body above the shoulders also do not fall under the massage rules.

A public hearing for the massage business rules is planned to be held in February. The hearing for the adult entertainment rules is set for March. West Rockhill Township Board of Supervisors meetings are 7 p.m. the third Wednesday of the month at the township offices on Ridge Road.

Ohio Showdown

Nearby towns say they are unlikely spots for adult businesses

BELLVILLE -- Last week's opening of Adultmart at Ohio 13 and Interstate 71 won't trigger a spread to nearby communities, say leaders in Lexington, Ontario, Bellville and Fredericktown.

Richland County's newest erotica emporium has triggered a flurry of controversy in and around Mansfield. Just down Ohio 13, what are the chances of a similar store opening in Bellville?

"Slim to none," said Bill Sheriff, Bellville's council president. "We don't need that."

In his 22 years on council, Sheriff said, only once has a porn store announced plans to move within city limits. That was in 2006, when the village quickly enacted zoning ordinances to prevent it.

Lexington Village Administrator Randall Pore said it would be difficult for an adult store to open there. By ordinance, adult entertainment businesses are restricted to operating in areas zoned for B2 use. Lexington's industrial park is the village's only area that is zoned B2.

"Almost all of the lots within our industrial park have a building on them," Pore said. "There are not many vacancies."

Lexington's ordinance also prohibits adult businesses from locating within 1,500 feet of any other adult business, 1,000 feet of churches, parks or playgrounds -- or within 500 feet of residences. That last restriction eliminates about half of Lexington's industrial park from consideration, Pore said.

"It would be difficult to find a place in there," he concluded.

An adult business would have to submit a proposal to village officials for review to obtain a conditional use permit, Pore said.

Still, he intends to discuss current ordinances with council.

"It's important enough -- and there's enough of an uproar in Mansfield -- that it probably warrants investigation," Pore said.

In Ontario, new Mayor Larry Collins said city administration shouldn't need special action to prevent an adult store from popping up on Lexington-Springmill Road. Collins said Ontario would lean on existing codes.

"The interior parts of any building or structure used for viewing booths and viewing areas or used as an adult arcade, adult bookstore, adult video store, adult motion picture theater, or adult theater, singularly or in combination, shall be visible from a continuous main aisle open and absent of any curtain, door, wall or other enclosure," reads part of the ordinance, enacted by council and then-mayor Thom Durbin in October 2005.

The law does not outlaw adult stores, but provides for strict provisions for their operation, prohibiting construction within 800 feet of schools and establishing a 21-year-old age minimum.

"I'm new on the block, so I don't know, but I don't think that's ever been challenged," Collins said.

"We're ready if it is."

Fredericktown solicitor Todd Drown said the village has a "lengthy and complicated" ordinance regulating adult businesses -- probably 25 to 30 pages long.

"It has been updated a couple of times to meet constitutional requirements" as new court cases have fine-tuned the limits of what government subdivisions can do.

The ordinance requires owners and employees of sexually oriented businesses to obtain a license to do business, allows for periodic inspections and restricts hours of operation from 9 a.m. to midnight.

Businesses can't be within 1,000 feet of a child care center, hospital, park, playground, library, religious facility, school or residential district, and must be located in a general manufacturing district.

Fredericktown's ordinance also sets rules for adult live entertainment businesses, including restrictions on the level of nudity and minimum distances between patrons and the stage.

"Currently, we don't have any sexually oriented businesses in operation," Drown said.

Ohio Showdown

Nearby towns say they are unlikely spots for adult businesses

BELLVILLE -- Last week's opening of Adultmart at Ohio 13 and Interstate 71 won't trigger a spread to nearby communities, say leaders in Lexington, Ontario, Bellville and Fredericktown.

Richland County's newest erotica emporium has triggered a flurry of controversy in and around Mansfield. Just down Ohio 13, what are the chances of a similar store opening in Bellville?

"Slim to none," said Bill Sheriff, Bellville's council president. "We don't need that."

In his 22 years on council, Sheriff said, only once has a porn store announced plans to move within city limits. That was in 2006, when the village quickly enacted zoning ordinances to prevent it.

Lexington Village Administrator Randall Pore said it would be difficult for an adult store to open there. By ordinance, adult entertainment businesses are restricted to operating in areas zoned for B2 use. Lexington's industrial park is the village's only area that is zoned B2.

"Almost all of the lots within our industrial park have a building on them," Pore said. "There are not many vacancies."

Lexington's ordinance also prohibits adult businesses from locating within 1,500 feet of any other adult business, 1,000 feet of churches, parks or playgrounds -- or within 500 feet of residences. That last restriction eliminates about half of Lexington's industrial park from consideration, Pore said.

"It would be difficult to find a place in there," he concluded.

An adult business would have to submit a proposal to village officials for review to obtain a conditional use permit, Pore said.

Still, he intends to discuss current ordinances with council.

"It's important enough -- and there's enough of an uproar in Mansfield -- that it probably warrants investigation," Pore said.

In Ontario, new Mayor Larry Collins said city administration shouldn't need special action to prevent an adult store from popping up on Lexington-Springmill Road. Collins said Ontario would lean on existing codes.

"The interior parts of any building or structure used for viewing booths and viewing areas or used as an adult arcade, adult bookstore, adult video store, adult motion picture theater, or adult theater, singularly or in combination, shall be visible from a continuous main aisle open and absent of any curtain, door, wall or other enclosure," reads part of the ordinance, enacted by council and then-mayor Thom Durbin in October 2005.

The law does not outlaw adult stores, but provides for strict provisions for their operation, prohibiting construction within 800 feet of schools and establishing a 21-year-old age minimum.

"I'm new on the block, so I don't know, but I don't think that's ever been challenged," Collins said.

"We're ready if it is."

Fredericktown solicitor Todd Drown said the village has a "lengthy and complicated" ordinance regulating adult businesses -- probably 25 to 30 pages long.

"It has been updated a couple of times to meet constitutional requirements" as new court cases have fine-tuned the limits of what government subdivisions can do.

The ordinance requires owners and employees of sexually oriented businesses to obtain a license to do business, allows for periodic inspections and restricts hours of operation from 9 a.m. to midnight.

Businesses can't be within 1,000 feet of a child care center, hospital, park, playground, library, religious facility, school or residential district, and must be located in a general manufacturing district.

Fredericktown's ordinance also sets rules for adult live entertainment businesses, including restrictions on the level of nudity and minimum distances between patrons and the stage.

"Currently, we don't have any sexually oriented businesses in operation," Drown said.

Censorship at LA City College

Advocates accuse L.A. City College of trying to censor campus paper

Los Angeles City College officials have infringed repeatedly on the rights of student journalists at the campus, according to two national civil liberties organizations.

"No institution in SPLC's recent memory has attempted censorship as persistently or with as many diverse methods as Los Angeles City College," officials from the Student Press Law Center and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education wrote in a recent letter to Mona Field, president of the Los Angeles Community College District's board of trustees.

The letter alleges that college administrators have engaged in a "pattern of interference" with the work of the campus' student newspaper, the Collegian, starting in August 2008. Among its concerns, the organizations wrote: College officials have made unacceptable demands of the paper's staff, tried to influence its content and proposed moving its reporters under administrators' supervision for "counseling" about their stories.

"Finding a 1st Amendment violation at LACC is like looking for a needle in a needle stack," said the letter, sent Jan. 15.

The two groups urged the trustees to take action to improve the climate for student journalists at the college and noted that the situation had also drawn the attention of state Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco). They said they joined Yee in urging the college's president, Jamillah Moore, to comply with state laws protecting the students' rights to free expression.

Moore did not return calls for comment. Student Services Vice President Lawrence Bradford acknowledged the tensions between student journalists and administrators, but called it a distraction as the college copes with accreditation and financial problems.

In one of several incidents alleged in the letter, Collegian reporter Mars Melnicoff tried to cover a July 16 town hall meeting on the campus about the college's accreditation problems. The college had been placed on probation by an accrediting commission a week earlier and Melnicoff used her cellphone to record audio of the discussion.

After the meeting, the letter alleges, Moore told Melnicoff she would have to sign a release before she would be permitted to use her own recording, even though it was a public meeting. Melnicoff refused.

In September, as the college was tightening its budgetary belt, the administration cut the paper's printing budget by 40%. The contract shows the original $25,000 amount with a line through it and $15,000 penned in, with the initials "J.M." written beside it.

After news of the cut came out and Yee's office called administrators to express concern, administration officials said the 40% reduction was a mistake and changed it to 16%.

"Clearly there was some retaliation in terms of the budget, which they didn't recant until our office called them," said Adam Keigwin, Yee's chief of staff. Yee has written two laws protecting students' speech rights.

Daniel Marlos, head of the college's Media Arts/Photography/Journalism Department, said administrators blamed him -- falsely, he says -- for giving the budget document to reporters and a warning memo was placed in his personnel file. The warning was later removed.

"I received a counseling memo for giving a public document to a reporter when in fact I didn't," Marlos said. "Even if I had done it, I had a perfect right to."

On Oct. 7, Yee wrote a letter to Moore saying that the college's policies "suggest a retaliatory policy that is prohibited by California law." Community College District Interim Chancellor Tyree Wieder responded to Yee, saying officials had found no free speech violations on the campus.

Now, Adam Goldstein, attorney advocate for the Student Press Law Center, said the organization hopes its letter persuades district trustees to look into and improve the situation for student journalists at the college.

And Collegian Editor in Chief Frank Elaridi said he and others on the staff are grateful for the support. "It feels like we're not just talking to a wall now," Elaridi said. "This will actually make the board take our allegations more seriously."

New Jersey Lawsuit

Adult store sues Hamilton zoners

HAMILTON -- The owners of Video Xpress, the Route 33 adult store that was the recent subject of an often bitter and drawn-out zoning battle, have filed a lawsuit against the township zoning board.

A lawyer for the Pennsauken-based Williams Trading Co. filed the suit Tuesday, nearly two months after the township's zoning board voted 5-2 to deny the adult novelty store's application to expand and nearly triple in size.

In the lawsuit, lawyer Walter Toto wrote that the company seeks a reversal of the zoning board's Dec. 8 decision and "demands judgment ... determining that the action of defendant, Hamilton Township Zoning Board of Adjustment, was arbitrary, capricious, unreasonable and contrary to law."

Williams Trading Co. is also seeking to be compensated for the cost of the lawsuit and awarded any "other relief as may be appropriate and just."

At the heart of the lawsuit is the company's assertion that the zoning board leaned too heavily on a New Jersey statute that prohibits businesses that are sexual in nature from setting up shop within 1,000 feet of certain buildings, like churches, schools or hospitals.

Built in 1974, Video Xpress lies in close proximity to Sayen Elementary School on Nottingham Way, but has been grandfathered in from the statute, which was established in 1995.

"Throughout the hearings on the application Defendant Board illegally applied the restrictions of (the statute) to the application," the lawsuit reads.

Williams Trading Co. first presented plans to expand the current store from 1,400 square feet to 4,600 square feet at a May zoning board meeting. The proposal also included the construction of two 1,500-foot retail spaces that owner Bob Pyne insisted would not be used for sexually oriented businesses.

Pyne said the expansion would allow the store, a cramped gray building, to be modernized and updated into a more upscale, aesthetically pleasing boutique specializing in lotions, lingerie and videos.

As a provision of the expansion, he also proposed to do away with the store's video booths, which were raided by police in early September upon reports of lewd behavior inside.

But area residents and religious groups weren't assuaged, and the zoning board hearings, a number of which were postponed, often turned into avenues for area residents to decry and rail against what was called a "porno shop."

In denying the expansion, zoning board members pointed out that despite Video Xpress's grandfathered status, sexually oriented businesses were not permitted in any zones under Hamilton's land use laws.

"The applicant failed to demonstrate that the subject property was particularly suited for the proposed use," reads a zoning board resolution denying the application.

The filing of the lawsuit affirms one of the misgivings of board member Tony DiStephano, one of two members who voted against the motion to deny.

"If these people decide to appeal this case to the courts I feel that they may win, and that's very troubling to me," he said at the Dec. 8 meeting.

Zoning board attorney Michael Balint said yesterday afternoon he could not comment on the suit, which he had only learned about earlier that morning and had not yet read through.

Cary, North Carolina Special Permits

Town tweaks rules for clubs
Cary officials want special permits for adult businesses,

CARY - Town council members are doing what they can to prevent strip clubs and other adult businesses from opening in Cary without special permission.

The Town Council voted on several land-use regulation amendments at their meeting Thursday, including a revision that would've allowed adult video stores, massage parlors and strip clubs to operate within specific industrial areas in Cary without a special use permit.

Town staff recommended the amendments, saying the changes would strengthen the land-use ordinance and protect the town from potential legal challenges.

But instead, council members unanimously passed a motion asking staff to draw up another amendment that would still require all new adult businesses to apply for special use permits even in areas where the businesses meet other land-use rules.

Under current law, adult businesses are not be allowed within 2,000 feet of each other or within 1,000 feet of any church, school, daycare, public park, house, or residential zone. Those rules have not changed.

The failed amendment would've allowed adult businesses to open shop in commercial and office space areas near Raleigh-Durham International Airport "by right," or without special permits. The new action removes this option.

"I don't want that to be our first impression," said Councilman Jack Smith, referring to the airport district's role as a gateway into Cary.

Staff reviewed other municipal ordinances and court decisions before deciding on the proposed zoning rules. The proposed amendment accommodates constitutionally-protected building uses while also maintaining property values and preventing "secondary impacts" of having such businesses around, such as blight, traffic, litter and crime, according to the town's report.

The Planning and Zoning Board had previously voted in favor of the amendment, 4-3.

"It certainly wasn't contentious, but the general concern was about removing citizens from the process," said board member Michelle Muir, who voted against the amendment."

If adult businesses come in "by right," they could set up without notifying nearby businesses or citizens of their arrival, she added.