Simi Council to Consider 45-Day Moratorium on Adult Businesses

Taking a new tack in its fight to keep a nude dance club out of city borders, the City Council on Monday will consider a 45-day moratorium on all adult-oriented businesses.

The proposed moratorium--which could be adopted by a four-fifths vote of the council--is the city’s response to a tentative ruling issued Monday. In that ruling, a federal judge deemed unconstitutional a local ordinance limiting cabaret locations.

That ruling could be finalized any day--obliterating a hurriedly passed city ordinance that prohibits nude dance clubs from operating within 1,000 feet of a school or religious facility or within 500 feet of a business catering to youths.

If the ruling takes effect before the Simi council enacts a stopgap measure, the city would have no legal means to oppose strip clubs or myriad other businesses not wanted by the city, according to a staff report by City Atty. John Torrance.

Council members said Thursday that the moratorium would give them time to examine the recent court ruling and craft a new ordinance regulating adult businesses.

“It’s needed to give us time to build a new law,” Mayor Greg Stratton said.

In the past, the council has approved moratoriums on cellular phone antennas and fast-food restaurants, using the measures to maintain the status quo while new ordinances were under consideration.

Several years ago, the council passed a similar moratorium blocking the establishment of new sexually oriented businesses that stayed in place until the current ordinance regulating those businesses was approved.

Roger Jon Diamond, an attorney representing Simi resident and would-be strip club owner Phil Young, said the new moratorium would be simply an extension of the old. Young wants to open a club at the intersection of Los Angeles Avenue and Sinaloa Road.

“You cannot keep adopting moratoriums,” Diamond said.

He also blasted the proposal as an infringement on Young’s 1st Amendment rights.

“I think everything the city has done in this case has been improper, and this would simply compound that,” he said.

Stratton argued that the proposed moratorium was separate from its predecessor. And he argued that the measure had more to do with city regulations and zoning than with the 1st Amendment.

“We would never do anything to impact free speech,” Stratton said. “This isn’t a free speech issue--it’s a zoning issue.”

Although the proposed moratorium would expire after 45 days, the council could legally extend it twice, up to a total duration of two years.

Diamond said he has not yet decided whether he will challenge this moratorium.

The moratorium spells out in detail what businesses would be blocked. Adult bookstores and novelty stores, nightclubs in which people appear nude or semi-nude, movie theaters showing pornography, escort services and massage parlors are all covered in the proposal. The moratorium’s fine print also includes a list of sexual activities which, if performed in connection with a business, would place that business under the moratorium’s provisions.