The subject of “adult oriented” businesses is once again on the agenda for the Guadalupe City Council, which was scheduled to discuss the issue at its Dec. 8 meeting.
Instead of banning adult businesses, including strip clubs and stores that sell adult sexually-oriented merchandise, the city is recommending that the council allow the placement of such businesses in the city.
The city can’t entirely ban these types of stores because of free speech issues. However, in February, Guadalupe renewed a temporary ban on adult businesses until the city could find a reasonable accommodation.
The original ban on adult businesses had to do with public indecency issues, according to City Attorney David Fleishman, who said that Guadalupe’s ban had “constitutional issues.”
Currently, zoning ordinances prevent such adult businesses from being established within a certain distance of schools and churches.
Placing adult businesses on Main Street would be difficult, considering that small strip of commercially zoned space includes several churches.
Instead, the city is recommending that adult businesses operate in 19 lots near the area of Obispo and 4th streets.
“We can’t just have them anywhere,” Councilmember Virginia Ponce told the Sun. “We don’t want them on the main drag. We certainly can’t have that.”
Currently, there are no adult business proprietors champing at the bit to have a location in Guadalupe, according to Ponce. For now, customers will have to make the 10-mile journey to Santa Maria for their “adult business” needs.
This article appears in Dec 10-17, 2015.
