Newport Beach : City Joins Whittier in Adult Businesses Suit

The city will join 22 other California communities in filing a friend of the court brief in support of a Whittier lawsuit seeking a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the city’s right to regulate the locations of adult entertainment businesses.

During an informal study session Tuesday, council members gave City Atty. Robert Burnham permission to add the city’s name to the suit. Whittier, like other cities around the country, including Newport Beach, has placed restrictions on where adult-oriented businesses could be located. “The theory being,” Burnham said, “that if a city allows adult businesses to collect in one area, the result is higher crime and blight.”

Burnham explained that one issue in the suit is whether Whittier adopted its ordinance with the intent to exclude adult businesses from the city.

He said the lawsuit will also address the extent to which the ordinance has to provide for alternate sites in the city or whether the law eliminated all of the sites where such businesses can be located.

Burnham said that since Newport Beach has passed a similar ordinance, the city could be affected by any Supreme Court decision on the matter.