Sexually oriented businesses here will be relegated to the boonies if the City Council approves an updated ordinance regulating these businesses Tuesday night.
Proprietors of adult bookstores and nude dancing establishments aren't pounding down the city's doors, but the council and staff see a problem fast approaching."With what's been happening all over the valley, in North Salt Lake and South Salt Lake . . . we have to nip it in the bud before it goes too far," Councilman Mike DeMass said Monday.
In recent months, both North Salt Lake and South Salt Lake have adopted strict laws to govern "adult-oriented" businesses that include adult bookstores, adult novelty shops and nude and semi-nude dancing establishments.
When neighboring cities take this approach, said West Jordan City Manager Dan Dahlgren, people who own these businesses look around to see where the climate is friendlier.
"That's what happens with these types of businesses," Dahlgren said. "There's really been no trend toward it, but our counterparts are getting serious about it, and we want to keep ourselves up-to-date on this."
City Attorney Greg Curtis said there have been no formal applications for adult-themed businesses, but he did get a call from someone asking about the city's policy. Upon investigation, Curtis found the current ordinance vague and dangerous for potential litigation.
"It says you can't show, display or sell anything obscene," Curtis said. "What we realized is that we could spend a lot of time litigating what's obscene and what's not."
The caller called "obscene" a subjective term, Curtis said.
The revamped policy defines sexually oriented businesses and effectively limits them to an M-1 zone reserved for manufacturing. It further allows businesses to locate only in areas where 200 acres of M-1 zoning are bunched together - which prohibits an adult-themed company from opening up shop in one of several small M-1 zone areas in West Jordan.
A survey of the city's zoning boundaries shows only one large collection of appropriate zoning; in the 21st Century Business Park, formerly known as Bagley Industrial Park near the city's west end.
There were some on the council that wanted to outlaw it all together, but we realize we can't do that," DeMass said.