Adverse secondary effects: Two problematic "cabarets" versus hundreds of unregulated rental properties.

Time now for the signature event of the evening: G-09-01, which would repeal the previous adult entertainment ordinance and enact a new one, which now describes the target as “adult cabarets.”

Why use a French word when “titty bar” is so richly descriptive … and American, to boot?

Discussion and questions follow. City attorney Shane Gibson takes the podium. There is one change in the draft copy. Steve Price asks whether the public speaker’s criticism of Constitutionality is valid. Gibson defers to a consultant lawyer, whose name I haven’t caught.

The legal expert now speaks. He explains Louisville’s 2004 ordinance, and how it was challenged by 22 adult businesses. The city won in the same year, and it was appealed to the Ky. Court of Appeals. The city won there, too. The new collection of rules is constitutionally sound.

Thisordinance follows a "road map" based on legislative records. Adult businesses cannot be banned outright, but can be stringently regulated to control adverse secondary effects.

The expert explains the data. The council has been given a massive package of findings that explain these adverse secondary effects. Includes anecdotal reports in addition to court findings and the like.

I don’t think much of this can be contested, but every single argument in favor of stringently regulating adult businesses because of adverse secondary effects applies just as concisely to unregulated rental properties, decrepit buildings in general, and the absence of enforcement that we’ve traditionally experienced.

Basically, we’re hearing that this is intentionally narrow and targets only one source of problems in the community to the exclusion of all others.

ROCK and the legal advisers are saying that we are justified in spending money and time to combat adverse secondary effects that are vastly fewer than the adverse secondary effects tolerated on a daily basis in other areas.

(five minutes of case law as I’ve tended to texts, and now I must use the restroom)

We’re to the last page. Recent examples cited. There is a summary of other expert witnesses. Somehow this is starting to sound curiously live the adverse effects of secondary smoke. No ciggies, no titties.

Tonight’s only the first reading, and as has become evident, the council’s postponed work session, which was postponed because the City-County Building was closed last week after the city failed to scrape its own sidewalks, is taking place now.

If anything out of the ordinary happens, I’ll be back.