City Council

Business of the Town Planning Commission Town of Ruston, WA Subject: Adult Entertainment – Zoning Dept. Origin: Mayor’s Office Regulations Prepared by: Jennifer Robertson Assistant Town Attorney For Agenda of: October 10, 2012 Proposed Commission Action: Exhibits: Attached ordinances, Legislative materials from Continue study of the issues relating to other jurisdictions & zoning adult entertainment businesses, including map appropriate siting regulations and impacts of such businesses and take public comment Initial & Date on the same. Concurred by Mayor: _________ Approved/form by Town Atty: JSR/10-4-12 Approved by _____ Director: __________ Approved by Department Head: __________ INFORMATION / BACKGROUND On September 26, 2012 the Planning Commission met to hold a public hearing on Adult Entertainment Businesses and to deliberate on the appropriate balance of zoning regulation and locational requirements for adult businesses to protect the public from the secondary impacts while still providing a forum for free expression under the U.S. and Washington Constitutions. As part of that meeting, the Planning Commission also heard from Officer Victor Celis who is an experience detective on this topic. Officer Celis was involved in multiple undercover operations at adult entertainment businesses and shared his first-hand experience with the Commission on how these businesses operate and the secondary effects of these businesses, including crime, illegal drugs, prostitution, theft, robberies, property damage and litter. He also shared his experience on how these impacts often spread out into the community beyond the property occupied by this use. In addition to hearing from Officer Celis, the Planning Commission viewed a Ruston Zoning Map and deliberated on the appropriate zone for this type of use as well as on buffering limitations. That deliberation resulted in the following changes being made to Draft Ordinance 1375:  The zone where these uses are allowed was revised from COM and COM-P to just COM-P because the park buffering removes the entire COM zone from use. 1   Residential zones were removed from the buffering requirement because including these uses would result in precluding this type of use from any location in the Town.  The buffer was set at 600 feet as that provides the maximum protection for sensitive uses while still allowing some areas of the COM-P zone for these types of businesses.  “Chapel” was removed from the list of sensitive uses because there is a current historic chapel in Ruston that is not used for religious worship services and its inclusion could result in complete preclusion. The definitions contained Ordinance 1385 has likewise been revised to remove “chapel” from the definition section. Attached to this Agenda Bill are the following documents:  Draft Ordinance #1375 (as amended) which creates a new Chapter 25.05 in the Ruston Municipal Code (RMC) to regulate the zoning of adult entertainment businesses.  Draft Ordinance #1385 which amends RMC Section 25.01.020 which is the definition section of the Ruston zoning code. This ordinance adds the necessary definitions for adult entertainment businesses and is a companion zoning ordinance to Ordinance #1375.  For informational/background purposes only, draft Ordinance #1383 which creates a new Chapter 5.11 in the Ruston Municipal Code for the purposes of establishing licensing provisions for adult entertainment businesses, adult entertainment managers, and adult entertainment entertainers. This ordinance not being a zoning ordinances is not subject to the purview of the Planning Commission, however, it will go to Council with the two zoning ordinances as a package regulating adult entertainment and thus may be of interest to the Planning Commission in its deliberations. Also, please recall that the extensive background materials for the Commission’s use are located on the Ruston Website at the following link: http://www.rustonwa.org/current- projects/ord-1375---adult-entertainment-zoning-standards RECOMMENDATION / MOTION If the Planning Commission is comfortable with the Ordinances as drafted, it can make a recommendation to the Council to approve the ordinances. Otherwise, if the Planning Commission would like more time on this topic, it should give direction to staff to bring back more information and to schedule another meeting for further deliberations.