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j) Is there an escape valve for uses which do not contribute to the <br /> identified skid row effects? <br /> A full record of a well-researched investigation into the problems of blight, <br /> actual or potential confronting a city appears to be a prerequisite to <br /> ensuring that any regulatory scheme eventually adopted will be upheld against <br /> such scrutiny. Similarly, the city council must be prepared to justify <br /> whatever adult entertainment regulations it enacts on the basis of clear <br /> findings supported by the evidence produced through your hearings. A city <br /> such as ours cannot simply import regulatory techniques from another community <br /> without engaging in some extended identification of the valid public interests <br /> to be served by such controls. <br /> • <br /> • 3. Licensing <br /> An alternative or supplemental approach to regulating adult entertainment <br /> activities is licensing. Licensing is favored in certain situations because <br /> ' it affords a potentially broader range of considerations related to a <br /> particular type of use to be addressed. While zoning is designed to focus on <br /> the effects of the use on the surrounding areas, licensing is a vehicle for <br /> addressing the manner in which the business is conducted and the • <br /> qualifications of those who engage in the enterprise. It is a particularly <br /> effective technique where the activity to be regulated is a relatively new one <br /> or where there is reason to suspect that the real character of a business is <br /> different than its professed activity. Would--be massage parlors or "escort" <br /> services which in fact engage in prostitution, or pawn shops which in fact <br /> traffic in stolen gccds are but a few examples of activities which seen <br /> particularly suited to regulation by licensing. The licensing approach can <br /> use standards and requirements that simply do not fit into zoning techniques. <br /> They can ensure that the applicant really is engaged in a legitimate business <br /> activity. <br /> As noted in the case of locational zoning techniques discussed above, the <br /> Supreme Court has approved treating adult uses differently than other uses. <br /> Courts therefore will also approve different treatment in licensing and permit <br /> schemes. As in the case of zoning, however, such different treatment must be <br /> supported by a substantial reason, ie. to protect against the secondary <br /> effects of such uses. Courts have upheld special licensing and permit <br /> requirements for adult uses on the grounds that they further (1) the <br /> enforcement of legitimate locational and distancing requirements;; (2) the <br /> monitoring of adult uses in regard to their secondary effects,. and (3) the <br /> interest in ensuring that adult uses do not violate criminal laws against <br /> prostitution, obscenity, etc. Licensing and special use permit requirements <br /> which affect protected forms of speech will be held valid only where the <br /> regulation provides narrow, objective and definite standards to guide the <br /> decisions of admi ii stratcrs. Guidelines and standards must be clear enough to <br /> safeguard against arbitrary and capricious action by the official responsible <br /> Aik for granting or denyinr, the permit. Standards may address only the <br /> operational, or secondary effects of adult businesses. A decision to deny a <br /> special permit to an adult business cannot be based on the content of the <br /> material offered by the business. Additional care must be taken in <br /> identifying the special secondary effects of a licensed adult use, where <br /> similar other commercial-retail uses are not subject to the license <br /> requirement. Typical conditions include regulations which permit inquiry into <br />