FELLSMERE — The Fellsmere City Council Thursday night unanimously passed three ordinances that will set the framework for how adult entertainment businesses would operate – if they were to move into town. The vote came after one person’s plea to not hinder such businesses because of the job opportunities that would be available.
David Almanza, a Fellsmere resident, was the lone person from the public to address the Council during the second and final public hearing. Almanza argued that the Council was only hearing one side – the negative side – to adult entertainment.
When asked what benefit such businesses would bring to Fellsmere, Almanza pointed to job opportunities. He said that a club would need servers, bouncers and wait staff – not counting performers.
Mayor Susan Adams countered, saying she would argue that those are not the type of businesses she would want to provide to the residents of Fellsmere.
Almanza also attempted to sway the Council by presenting statistics that in Portland, Ore., where there are 50 such businesses, crime is lower now than it was 10 years ago per capita. He compared that to a small town in New Hampshire with just one adult business. That town has more crime that Portland, per capita.
“It’s been kind of frustrating,” Almanza told the Council. “You’ve got your fears; you’ve got your beliefs, and that’s all you hear.”
Almanza could not tell the Council, when asked, how Portland went about reducing the crime – if the department hired more officers or made other such changes.
“Anything can be skewed” one way or the other, he told the Council of the statistics that had been presented.
Mayor Susan Adams told Almanza and the rest of the audience that the Council cannot out-right ban adult entertainment businesses – or sexually-oriented businesses – from the city as they are protected under the First Amendment. However, the Council can enact rules that limit and mitigate the secondary negative effects such businesses are known to create.
The three ordinance provide for regulations, address public nudity, and set the locational criteria for where such businesses can be set up.
City Attorney Warren Dill told the Council that the ordinances are “content neutral” – that they don’t regulate the “content” of the books in adult bookstores or the type of dancing allowed in the strip clubs. Instead, the rules set out the time, place, and manner by which the businesses can operate.
Almanza made one more plea, asking the Council to not enact what he believes to be restrictive ordinances. Instead, he asked that the City monitor any such business and if it starts having a negative impact on the community, then revoke their license.
“If it happens,” he said, “shut them down.”
Under the ordinances, there is a process by which the businesses get a license to operate. If the business violates the rules a set number of times or is otherwise out of compliance, the City has a process for suspending the license until the violations are brought back into compliance. There is also a process for revoking the license as well as a process for the business to appeal the revocation.
The “Council is not in a position to take the gamble” that adult entertainment businesses will be run in such a way they won’t negatively impact the community, Mayor Adams said, referencing study after study that shows the impacts. “We just cannot take that chance.”
