Santee Adult Business Law Upsets School : Council Votes 3 to 2 to Create a 35-Acre X-Rated Zone in City

Debbie Martinez, director of the Montessori Learning Center on Woodside Avenue North here, apologized to her visitor, and for the umpteenth time Thursday, answered her Mickey Mouse-model telephone. It was no surprise that the caller, like the others, was inquiring about the adult entertainment law passed late the night before by the Santee City Council.

The council, by a 3-2 vote, set aside an area for adult entertainment, after months of excruciating and acrimonious debate. The area runs along Woodside Avenue North, paralleling California 67 in an area that is devoted almost entirely to auto repair shops and other less-than-sightly businesses.

Montessori is a notable exception, and the notion of a topless bar or adult bookstore in the neighborhood did not please Martinez or the callers, who were promising to start a petition drive to block any adult businesses in the area.

“I have no argument with the premise that people have the right to do what they want to do,” Martinez said. “But keep this kind of thing where it belongs. Our parents are very upset. I wouldn’t take my 12-year-old daughter to downtown San Diego, and the kids who come here should not be subjected to this kind of thing on the way to school.”

Matthew Fouratt, Santee’s planning director, said the choice of the plot of land chosen for adult entertainment in the city came down to the lesser of several evils. The city’s attorney, Gloria McLean, and Stephen Hartwell, a University of San Diego associate professor hired by the city to offer a second opinion, agreed that the movement by many residents to ban adult entertainment from the city entirely was unconstitutional.

The 3,200-foot-long, 35-acre strip along Woodside was “the only real option the city could offer for such zoning,” Fouratt said. Other sites considered and rejected included three shopping centers.

“We figured there’d be too much exposure to the general public at those places,” Fouratt said. “The land chosen is more of a hodgepodge of industrial developments.

“This is a family community, and it’s safe to say most of our residents don’t want this type of thing,” Fouratt said. “But every city in the county has an ordinance of this type, and ours is the most restrictive we could come up with.”

Under the ordinance, adult entertainment will not be allowed within 1,000 feet of a school or church, and an adult business must be at least 600 feet from the next adult-oriented entertainment establishment.

When deciding where adult entertainment should be located, Fouratt said, a city must decide if it wants to create a situation similar to Boston’s “Combat Zone,” which restricts such businesses to one section of the community.

“I think we’ve struck a good balance,” he said. “We haven’t created something that will turn into a mini-Boston, and we have protected most of our city from this type of building. And if there are police problems, they’re easier to handle in a concentrated area.”

The controversy began several months ago when the owner of Casa Don Diego Restaurant on Cuyamaca Boulevard requested and was denied a permit to allow topless dancing at the club. The owner, Sheldon Woods, did not attend Wednesday’s council meeting and his future plans are uncertain.

“That’s the gateway area to our city,” Fouratt said. “It just wasn’t an appropriate location.”