OXNARD : Study to Limit Adult Businesses Widens

The Oxnard City Council on Tuesday broadened a study aimed at creating city laws to include limiting peep shows and other adult businesses.

A committee formed earlier this year to restrict adult bookstores and theaters will expand its review to include limiting the location and activities of massage parlors, escort services and other sexually oriented establishments that want to do business in Oxnard.

Committee members also will consider toughening licensing requirements to ensure that businesses such as massage parlors practice only massage.

The committee has yet to recommend specific zones where adult businesses could be located, but the aim of the proposed laws is to keep the businesses away from schools, churches and parks.

Although few such businesses exist in Oxnard, police officers recommended expanding the committee’s powers to limit any adult business that might want to locate in the city.

“These types of businesses attract the same type of clients” as adult theaters and bookstores, Police Officer Lee Wilcox told the council.

“If we do not address all adult sexually oriented businesses, we will be opening ourselves for additional problems in the future.”

The council unanimously agreed to ask the Virginia-based National Law Center for Children and Families to help draft an ordinance to limit the location of adult businesses.

The nonprofit corporation provides its services at no cost to cities seeking to restrict adult activities.