Zoning ordinance for adult bookstores upheld

The city of Spokane is free to “keep the pig out of the parlor” under an appeals court ruling Tuesday upholding the city’s zoning ordinance for adult bookstores and other sex shops.

City spokeswoman Marlene Feist said the ruling by the Washington Court of Appeals in Spokane was a signal for city officials to begin forcing three World Wide Video stores to move away from residential zones.

“We are going to go ahead and move forward with our action to get them to move it away from our suburban neighborhoods and our parks,” Feist said.

She said the city attorney’s office will file anti-nuisance lawsuits to force World Wide Video to remove its stores at 1811 E. Sprague, 4811 N. Market and 3813 N. Division. The company’s Division Street store, at Garland Avenue, is called Hollywood Erotique Boutique.

World Wide Video attorney Dominic Bartoletta declined to comment.

Attorney Marco Barbanti couldn’t be reached for comment. Barbanti is the stores’ landlord, and participated in their failed appeal of a Spokane County Superior Court decision upholding the sex-shop ordinance.

“Our legal office has really done a good job of upholding this law,” Feist said.

The city has won six of seven legal challenges, and three stores already have moved, Feist said.

The ordinance was passed in January 2001 and amended in September 2003. It prohibits sexually oriented stores from being within 750 feet of libraries, parks, public or private schools, daycares, churches or various residential and agricultural zones.

State and federal lawsuits by Barbanti and the Erotique Boutique store at 54 E. Wellesley, across from NorthTown, remain unresolved. Barbanti also is the landlord of that store.

Feist said city officials will wait for appellate court resolution before moving against the Erotique Boutique actions, as it did in the World Wide Video lawsuits.

World Wide Video filed parallel lawsuits in state and federal courts, and lost at both levels. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last May that Spokane’s zoning restrictions on sex shops didn’t violate free-speech rights guaranteed by the federal constitutional.

Similarly, a three-judge panel of the Washington Court of Appeals said the ordinance doesn’t violate free-speech rights guaranteed by the state constitution.

Both courts said constitutional rights were adequately protected by the ordinance, which was amended to ensure that there are enough permitted locations for adult stores.

The state appellate court quoted its federal counterpart on that point: “Municipalities are allowed to ‘keep the pig out of the parlor’ by devising regulations that target the adverse secondary effects of sexually oriented adult businesses.”

In addition, the Washington Court of Appeals rejected Barbanti’s argument that he would improperly be deprived of $725,000 in rent from long-term leases on the World Wide Video shop on Market Street and the Hollywood Erotique Boutique shop on Division Street.

There are other uses for the buildings, and the leases acknowledge that they are subject to city regulation, the judges said.

The stores were given a one-year extension, until the end of 2002, to ease the hardship of moving. City officials took no action when the revised deadline was ignored to avoid a possibly costly court reversal.

Officials won’t wait for a possible state Supreme Court challenge, Feist said.