Regulation of adult businesses advances

Yakima moved a step closer Thursday to passing a law that would restrict the location of new adult businesses but allow existing ones to stay open.

The law, which the city's Urban Area Regional Planning Commission voted to recommend to the City Council, will go before the council likely within the next month. Several people, including the owners of two adult retail stores, spoke against the new restrictions Thursday, while no one from the public spoke in its favor.

"They're pushing a bill that has no support," said Jeff Sorenson, who owns the adult video and novelty store Grapevine on Summitview Avenue. "It's an ordinance looking for a problem."

Members of the commission and city staffers said the ordinance is based on similar laws in other cities. It would mandate a 500-foot distance between new adult stores and churches, schools, day-care facilities, public parks, libraries and residential zones. And it would mandate a 1,500-foot distance between any two adult businesses, a provision designed to prevent "red-light" districts.

A previous version of the proposal would have required existing businesses to meet those requirements, but it was revised in June to allow them to be grandfathered in. The Grapevine and Eve's Garden on Lincoln Avenue are within 1,500 feet of each other but will be exempt from the proposed new law because they already exist.

Other elements of the
ordinance, such as the requirement of screening buffers on their property lines above and beyond those required for other businesses, would apply to existing businesses as well.

Tracy Tobia, who owns Eve's Garden, said she was pleased to see the grandfather clause added and was glad to hear Thursday that her business would keep its grandfather status even if she sells it.

"As long as I can resell my business, it's not going to hurt me," she said.

The chance for public debate on the issue was Thursday at the commis-sion's public hearing; the City Council will not take further testimony when it considers the ordinance.

* Pat Muir can be reached at 577-7693 or pmuir@yakimaherald.com.