City gets specific in war on smut
The rapidly growing city has no sexually oriented businesses at present, but the City Council unanimously passed a sweeping ordinance Tuesday night that will heavily regulate any future businesses of that nature.
"We have learned it's a lot better to do proactive legislative drafts rather than curative ordinances," said Craig Hall, a private attorney with Chapman and Cutler in Salt Lake City who was involved in drafting the new ordinance.
Hall cited a precedent set by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000, in the case of Pap's A.M. vs. City of Erie, Pa., in which the court ruled that municipal governments can prohibit nudity in commercial establishments.
But Hall, who worked as a city attorney for 30 years prior to entering private practice, acknowledged that limiting such businesses has been "a very difficult and complex area." Unlike the previous ordinance in Spanish Fork, the new ordinance will prohibit commercial nudity outright and place a number of restrictions on businesses that offer adult materials.
The new ordinance also sets a cap on how many sexually oriented businesses can operate in Spanish Fork at one business per 8,000 residents. The city had nearly 23,000 residents in a 2004 Census estimate, more than double the 1990 Census figure of 11,000.
To be eligible for a sexually oriented license, employees must have no criminal convictions in the previous five years. Applicants with any kind of conviction for a crime of a sexual nature at any time are ineligible.
Hall said the city will be able to defend such a rigid policy because the ordinance is very specific. It defines different types of adult businesses, such as bookstores and novelty stores, and explains how and where those businesses can operate.
"It is easier to prosecute a case when we can say, 'You are an adult bookstore,' because we've defined it — we have found that in the litigation we have been involved in, precise definitions have been the key to our success, because the purveyor of this type of material or this type of business can't come back and say we weren't specific enough," Hall said.
Hall also cited a number of studies the city consulted in the process — which found that sexually oriented businesses have increased crime rates in their area and have had a negative impact on property values — as evidence the city could use if the ordinance is ever called into question.
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