Proposed Cobb code changes target sexually oriented businesses

UPDATE: Nobody showed up to speak in favor of or against the new ordinance on Tuesday. There will be another public hearing Sept. 8, the same day Cobb commissioners are expected to vote on the matter.

An initial public hearing is scheduled Tuesday for proposed Cobb code amendments that would make sweeping changes in regulating sexually oriented businesses.

At a Monday work session, the Cobb Board of Commissioners was briefed by Cobb County Attorney’s Office about the proposals, which would expand the definition of sexually oriented businesses and restrict where they can operate.

They would be required to get special sexually oriented business licenses, and all employees would have to have permits. Anyone operating such a business would have to meet buffer and other regulatory measures to abate what are termed “adverse secondary negative effects.”

(You can read through the proposed code amendments here. Reader discretion is advised, since there are some explicit descriptions of sexual acts, body parts and devices.)

The proposed code amendments come two months after Tokyo Valentino, an Atlanta-based adult retail store, opened on Johnson Ferry Road in a vacant mattress store in East Cobb.

That store opened after it received a business license to operate as a retail clothing store under the general commercial zoning category. East Cobb commissioner Bob Ott said the county could not stop an adult store from opening there, even if it advertised itself as something else, due to existing ordinances.

The land where the former Mattress Firm store stood has been zoned general commercial since the 1970s

The new store in East Cobb drew community opposition before it opened as Tokyo Valentino and after Morrison initially said that’s not what would be going in that space

Among the court cases attorney Scott Bergthold referenced during the presentation were several current legal disputes involving adult stores in Brookhaven and Sandy Springs operated by Tokyo Valentino owner Michael Morrison.

In June the city of Marietta closed and revoked the business license of a Tokyo Valentino store on Cobb Parkway for violating an ordinance regulating the amount of sexual peraphernalia allowed in a general commercial category.

The proposed Cobb amendments would completely overhaul a section of the county code pertaining to licenses for adult businesses, which Bergthold said hasn’t been updated in decades.

He said courts have ruled that “can’t ban them but can stringently regulate” where they’re allowed to operate and what they can do.

Under the proposed code amendments, the new category of “sexually oriented businesses”—which would include adult retail stores like Tokyo Valentino as well as adult entertainment establishments—would be allowed only in two industrial zoning categories.

Any “lawfully existing” adult businesses operating in other zoning categories would have until the end of 2021 to relocate to an appropriately zoned property, and could apply for “hardship” to extend that period.

That provision would presumably affect the Tokyo Valentino store on Johnson Ferry Road, the only one currently operating in unincorporated Cobb County.

An adult bookstore would be defined as one that derives at least 25 percent of its revenues from the sale and rental of sexually explicit items and has at least 25 percent of its floor space devoted to displaying those materials.

Sexually oriented businesses also would not be allowed to operate within 750 feet of residentially zoned land, within 1,500 feet of a school, religious facility, government-owned or run building, 1,000 feet of another sexually oriented business and 500 feet of another business licensed to sell alcohol, either on premises or a package store.

The Tokyo Valentino store is located close to some of those kinds of buildings and areas.

The adverse affects Burkholder referenced include declining property values, crime and public safety risks, lewdness, decency and the possible transmission of disease, drug use and trafficking and aesthetic impacts like traffic, litter, noise and blight.

Violations carry a maximum fine of $1,000 per violation, and proposed provisions outline steps the county could take to address repeat violators deemed to be a “nuisance,” including revocation of a business license.

Cobb County Attorney William Rowling said the proposed code changes have been publicly advertised three times since July 31.

Cobb commissioners will conduct a public hearing at their regular meeting that starts at 7 p.m. on Tuesday. Action on the code amendments is scheduled after another public hearing in September.

Tuesday’s full meeting agenda can be found here.

You can watch online here or here or via Cobb TV, the county’s public access outlet, on Channel 23 on Comcast cable

Related stories

• Editor’s Note: Is East Cobb really so uptight about a sex shop?
• East Cobb citizens speak out against new Johnson Ferry Road store
• Empty East Cobb retail building subject of sex shop concerns

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