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• <br /> INTRODUCTION <br /> 1 <br /> Many communities in Minnesota have raised concerns about the impact of <br /> sexually oriented businesses on their quality of life. It has been suggested that sexually <br /> oriented businesses serve as a magnet to draw prostitution and other crimes into a <br /> vulnerable neighborhood. Community groups have also. voiced the concern that <br /> sexually oriented businesses can have an adverse effect on property values and <br /> impede neighborhood revitalization. it has been suggested that spillover effects of the <br /> . businesses can lead to sexual harassment of residents and scatter unwanted evidence <br /> of sexual liaisons in the paths of children and the yards of neighbors. • <br /> Although many communities have sought to regulate sexuallyoriented 9 e ted businesses, <br /> these efforts have often been controversial and equally often unsuccessful. Much <br /> community sentiment against sexually oriented businesses is an outgrowth of hostility <br /> . to sexually explicit forms of expression. Any successful strategy to combat sexually <br /> oriented businesses must take into account the constitutional rights to free speech <br /> which limit available remedies. <br /> • Only those pornographic materials which are determined to be "obscene" have no <br /> constitutional protection. As explained later in more detail, only that pornography <br /> which, according to community standards and taken as a whole, "appeals to the <br /> prurient interest" (as opposed to an interest in healthy sexuality), describes or depicts <br /> sexual conduct in a "patently offensive way" and "lacks serious literary, artistic, political <br /> or scientific value," can be prohibited or prosecuted. Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, <br /> 24•(1973). <br /> Other pornography and the businesses which purvey it can only be regulated <br /> where a harm is demonstrated and the remedy is sufficiently tailored to prevent that <br /> harm without burdening First Amendment rights. In order to reduce or eliminate the <br /> impacts of sexually oriented businesses, each community must find the balance <br /> between the dangers of pornography and the constitutional rights to free speech. Eaci' <br /> community must have evidence of harm. Each community must know the range of <br /> legal tools which can be used to combat the adverse impacts of pornography and <br /> sexually oriented businesses. <br /> • <br />