LeMar's Nightclub doesn't plan on going anywhere, even though the City Council has banished all new and existing sexually oriented businesses to a southeast Provo industrial area.
The council Tuesday night unanimously imposed a temporary zoning regulation that limits adult bookstores and strip joints to the East Bay Business Center. Such establishments also must be at least 500 feet away from any school, church or another adult business. There is a day-care center at East Bay.The sexually oriented business "overlay" zone includes 146 parcels of land totaling 583 acres. The acreage amounts to 2.63 percent of all the property in Provo and 27.8 percent of area zoned for commercial development.
Council members were comfortable in setting the limitation based on court-approved ordinances in other cities.
LeMar's response to the new regulations? Big deal.
The nightclub's attorney, Andrew W. McCullough, didn't speak during a public hearing on the issue Tuesday night. He explained why after the meeting.
"It doesn't matter where they put it. We're not going to move," he said.
LeMar's started a semi-nude dancing show at the club in July. Dancers strip down to pasties and T-back bikinis in a room separate from the bar. The downtown club is Provo's only strip joint.
The council adopted a strict sexually oriented business ordinance shortly after women started stripping at LeMar's. According to the new law, the nightclub has until early January to relocate or discontinue the exotic dancing.
McCullough believes some provisions in the new law are unconstitutional and that the city can't make it retroactive. Earlier he said he'd be willing to discuss with the city what he sees as problems in the ordinance. No talks have taken place, and McCullough said Tuesday there's nothing to talk about.
"They'll never get it straight," he said.
Even though resident Joyce Baggerly doesn't want a strip club anywhere near her downtown neighborhood, she spoke against the new zoning regulation. She told the council it's wrong to force a legal business to move.
"Are we going to do that to other things we don't like?" said the Timpanogos neighborhood chairwoman. "I have a problem with saying you have to leave a place you legally are. I don't want to set that precedent."
Mayor George Stewart said the city's new sexually oriented business law changes that. "Basically, they're (LeMar's) not there legally anymore," he said.
Stewart said studies in other cities show that strip clubs and adult bookstores increase crime, especially sex crimes. He said Provo is trying to keep those negative impacts from downtown.
Baggerly said she understands all that, but "it's the principle" of forcing a business to relocate.
Salvador Melo, a mayoral candidate, said police could better regulate businesses like LeMar's downtown rather than in a "dark corner by the railroad tracks." The nightclub is about a block from the police station.