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CITY OF ST. ANTHONY <br /> COUNCIL MINUTES <br /> • March 10 , 1981 <br /> The meeting was called to order by Mayor Haik at 7 :35 P.M. after a <br /> short recess which followed the work session on Cable T.V. <br /> Present for roll call : Haik, Letourneau, Ranallo, Sundland and Marks. <br /> Also present: Jim Fornell, City Manager; Ron Berg, Administrative <br /> Assistant; William Soth, City Attorney; and Carol <br /> Johnson, Clerk/Treasurer. <br /> Motion by Councilman Sundland and seconded by Councilman Ranallo to <br /> approve as submitted the minutes for the Council meeting held <br /> February 24 , 1981. <br /> Motion carried unanimously. <br /> The Mayor read the letter of thanks from the Chemical Use/Abuse <br /> Information Committee for the City 's $2 ,500 contribution toward the <br /> Committee' s drug information dissemination program and ordered the <br /> Committee ' s minutes for their February 25th meeting filed. <br /> Consideration of the proposed ordinance to regulate massage parlors , <br /> etc. had been tabled for further research by the City Attorney. <br /> Mr. Soth had suggested two options to restrict these operations within <br /> the City which Mr. Fornell had included in his memorandum of March <br /> 10th. He had found no instances where municipalities in this area <br /> had either totally precluded or attempted to totally preclude <br /> massage parlors from within their boundaries , Mr. Soth said. <br /> However, one city, Jacksonville, Florida had successfully set <br /> distance restrictions which made it impossible for massage parlors <br /> and other similar operations from being established in the city at <br /> all, and the courts had ruled in favor of those restrictions . He <br /> said recent court cases have upheld cities ' rights to regulate by <br /> licensing or distance restrictions this type of business , considering <br /> them to be zoning, and not constitutional questions. The courts have <br /> also not accepted claims that prohibition of opposite sex massages <br /> is discriminatory against women because in most cases they are the <br /> masseuse. Mr. Soth suggested setting a distance restriction of 500 <br /> feet of a residential district, a church, a school or of another <br /> similar business as a condition for granting a conditional use permit <br /> for massage parlors which would restrict such operations to only a <br /> limited area in the southeast corner of the Apache property. The <br /> Manager said Apache management may not permit such a business. <br /> The Mayor and several of the Council had talked to officials in <br /> Minneapolis and Columbia Heights and learned of their experiences <br /> with undesirable businesses of this type and reason for reluctance <br /> to license such operations. <br /> Councilman Sundland didn't think a geographic restriction of 500 feet <br /> . could be viewed as capricious or arbitrary and Councilman Marks <br /> wondered if the prevailing mores of the community might dictate as <br />