Camarillo Tightening Sex-Business Rules

Even though there are no strip clubs or X-rated bookstores in this city, officials here are stiffening regulations about where and how such businesses could operate.

The city Planning Commission has unanimously approved revisions to a law that prevents sexually oriented businesses from locating anywhere but on property zoned for industrial uses.

Proposed changes to the current law, which was adopted in 1978, will next be considered by the Camarillo City Council, possibly as early as next month.

Planning Director Matthew A. Boden said the new provisions in the law regulating adult businesses are necessary to keep up with recent court decisions.

The tighter law is also needed “to ensure the integrity of the development of the city, to maintain property values and to maintain social and economic characteristics of the industrial sections of the city,” Boden said in his report to planning commissioners.

No one spoke for or against the proposed changes at a public hearing earlier this week.

Planning Commissioner William Q. Liebmann said updating the 18-year-old law would protect the city.

“Rather than having an ordinance that was invalid, which would open up the entire city to such [adult] uses,” Liebmann said, “we thought it was appropriate to have an ordinance that would meet the requirements of the law.”

The proposed changes set standards for the exterior appearances of adult-oriented businesses, as well as their hours of operation, lights, noise and other conditions.

It also would prevent them from locating within 1,000 feet of homes, churches and schools, and requires them to be at least 500 feet from one another.

“It’s balancing the rights of the individual people against the rights of the community,” Commissioner Walter Lusk said. “It’s [a law] we can live with and the courts would uphold.”

No one has applied to open an adult-oriented business in Camarillo, planning department officials said.

The proposal stands a good chance of being approved in March. Last year, the Camarillo City Council publicly opposed the screening of the nudity-filled movie “Showgirls.”

“We don’t like this kind of business anyway,” Lusk said. “If asked, we would want them to go someplace else.”