New Haven seeks more control on adult shops
NEW HAVEN – Curbing adult sex shops and related businesses in New Haven might require zoning changes and additional permitting or licensing requirements, New Haven’s mayor said Tuesday.
Mayor Terry McDonald gave City Council members a brief update Tuesday on his plans to reintroduce a sexually oriented business ordinance to control where such businesses locate in the city.
Attorneys for both the city and the council are researching the issue. The city might hire a third attorney who has written similar laws that have withstood legal challenges for other Indiana communities, McDonald said.
The two-pronged approach could require certain types of businesses to seek a license or permit to operate, and the city could also use traditional zoning standards as a second control, McDonald said.
An ordinance debated in 2002 would have limited where such businesses could set up shop. The proposed law never made it out of a council committee after the plan commission failed to make a yes-or-no recommendation.
The 2002 version would have prevented adult businesses from locating within 1,000 feet of a residential property, school, church, park, family restaurant, child-care center or bar. Also, sexually oriented businesses – adult bookstores, adult theaters, escort services and nude-model studios – would have been allowed to operate only between noon and midnight. That ordinance would have essentially relegated these businesses to the back corner of Wayne Haven Industrial Park, south of Indiana 930.
At the time, no adult businesses were open or looking to open in New Haven. But an adult novelty shop called Cupid’s Castle is set to open its doors in the castle building on the north side of Indiana 930 and has already posted signs out front advertising its wares.
The store’s emergence prompted McDonald to revisit how the city could prevent similar businesses from opening on the main thoroughfare through town.
Dollar store
The council approved the second and third reading of an ordinance allowing a 1.7-acre parcel in the 7200 block of Indiana 930 to be zoned general commercial instead of single-family residential. The property, next to Main’s Flower Garden, is slated to be a variety-dollar store.
Mayor Tom Henry and the Allen County commissioners will welcome the award-winning Voices of Unity Youth Choir back to American soil in downtown Fort Wayne today.