Strip Clubs in Industrial Areas

From what I've seen, it's not that SCs are required to be located in industrial zones, but rather that they cannot be located within a certain distance of parks, churches, schools, residential areas, etc. With those restrictions, industrial zones end up being the only places SCs can be. In San Diego, if you have a strip club (or any adult business), and then someone else opens/builds a certain kind of use within 1000 feet, you will have to close down after 5 years.

They're often in unincorporated areas, sometimes little patches of a few blocks completely surrounded by the city or town.

I've noticed a lot that have freeway frontage, but when you get off the freeway they're hidden in the back of an industrial park that's well off the main street.

Re: xedin5436 3/2/2011 -
In my article I mentioned that placing strip clubs in industrial zones is one of three common zoning practices used to regulate the location of adult businesses. What you have described is one of the other two methods, known as the "distance method." As you described a distance criteria, often 500 ft., (some jurisdictions set a longer distance)is determined as a minimum distance in which adult businesses must be located from sensitive land uses, like you described: Schools, churches, parks, etc.--basically, in locations where they'd be seen by children. One of the cities I worked for also had an airport in it, so that was deemed a sensitive location, and adult businesses were prohibited from locating within 500 ft. of the airport entrance. This was done simply as an image concern, not so much for protecting children from viewing a potential adult business nearby. In many distance-based adult business ordinances, no two adult businesses are allowed to be located within 500 ft. (or whatever distance applies) of each other, to disperse adult businesses, and disallow a concentration of them.

The end result can be the same as limiting their locations to industrial zones. This is because when strip clubs are in commercial zones, often the zone is a linear commercial (or strip commercial--no pun intended) zone, whereby just the properties that front on an arterial street are zoned commercial. Where this occurs, residential zones are often located behind the linear commercial zones. That usually makes it impossible to locate an adult business further than the minimum distance to the residential zone.

Industrial zones tend to be designated in large amounts of land. So, where the local jurisdiction has a distance-based ordinance, the end result often tends to locate an adult business in an industrial zone. Seldom will you find industrial zones in a linear fashion. Where that does occur is often with respect to a railroad line or a waterfront location.

I have a buddy who is a detective with a very large city on the west coast and he is primarally tasked with supervising and regulating strip clubs. Clubs in residential areas are a real headache for everyone concerned. Like it or not, clubs come with drug use and sales. prostitution, roberies and a host of other issues. Being in the "Boonies" is best for everyone. the police dont have to answer radio calls all night about sex in cars, dope being sold or ditsy strippers getting smacked by their pimps. out of site out of mind.

Even in Las Vegas, a town with more clubs than you can count on your hands and feet, there are less than one handful in the actual city of Las Vegas. All the others are in the county (which BTW is where the gambling “strip” is located).

If you are just looking around, just drive the length of Industrial Blvd, and you will find a large bunch.

Bumrubber, Localbob, and Joe from NJ:
Good comments and observations from all of you. Bumrubber first: Historically, county governments are known to have far less restrictive land use policies, and subsequent enforcement capability than cities have. When choosing a location, an adult business would do well to find a jurisdiction with a weak adult business ordinance. Often counties have this tendency rather than incorporated cities. That’s why you may find a strip club in a county island or enclave surrounded by the city limits of an incorporated city. The club gets all the locational benefits it wants, but enjoys the lax laws and policies of the county.

Localbob, Part of the problem you have identified is that there are always complaints from residents in single family-zoned areas, when they live next to, or near any other zone--even multiple family residential. No city has the luxury of establishing a greenbelt buffer between single family and other zones. Hence, near the boundary of single family and anything else is likely to produce some conflict. Ordinary businesses generate issues of parking problems, noise, littering, trash hauling, etc. If the business is open late at night, even more so. Then add other elements of liquor sales, and/or nudity, such as in strip clubs and those problems are compounded. The logic of getting them away from residential areas greatly reduces citizen complaints.

Joe from NJ, I’ve been to Las Vegas several times. As you mentioned, many people are surprised to know that all of the major hotels are located in unincorporated Clark County, and not within the city limits of the city of Las Vegas. (If you look at a map of Las Vegas, Las Vegas Blvd. (aka "The Strip") runs the entire length of the city. From Sahara Ave. southward is where all the major hotels and casinos are, and that is outside of the city limits.) I asked about that once, and I was told that the revenue sharing wouldn’t change if the city annexed the strip. So, it seems that the city gets the monetary benefit, without having to support that area with municipal services. As you mentioned, Industrial Road is home to several strip clubs as well as Western Ave. Both are on either side of the railroad line that bisects Las Vegas. There was probably an industrial zone in place already. However, Las Vegas being a unique city, I sense that the strip clubs are located there because they’re close to all the major hotels on the strip, not because they’re in the unicorporated county area—my observations.

Many of the clubs I go to aren't located in industrial areas at all. Dolls in Woonsocket, RI., is located in a residential neighborhood of 3 deckers; Inner Room Cabaret in Cocoa Beach, Florida is located on Atlantic ave., which is the main road through downtown 1 1/2 blocks from the Atlantic Ocean; Booby Trap in Pompano Beach Fla., is located in a crappy residential area; Mario's in Webster , Mass is in a mixed use area across the street froma chinese restaurant. There is no standard rule.

While I have yet to see any stripclub near churches or schools, I've seen a fair number near major malls, in stripmalls/minicenters, on major roadways festooned with "normal" businesses, near freeway exits[visible from freeway], on way to airport, etc.

Well, no, of course there is no standard rule that applies across ALL the possible jurisdictions - 50 states, howevermanyhundreds counties, thousands municipalities. Some locations are looser/tighter about zoning regulations in general, some are looser/tighter on Adult Entertainment permitting in particular; some merely look the other way as long as it stays in certain neighborhoods and only get around to enforcement if someone creates a nuisance. But the point is that more and more you will find AE businesses herded away from prime commercial land, save for those that may be "grandfathered". Indeed many municipalities do work to place hurdles around Adult Entertainment establishments, even when officially sanctioned: e.g. maybe your alcohol license and your AE license must be both kept up to date and if you let the one lapse then you can't get it back w/o surrendering the other and starting from scratch; or maybe there is a limit on square footage or a requirement that beyond a certain point in that square footage X% of your business (by space or by revenue) be just a regular food/drink place; or AE permits are "bound to the land", can't be portable to another venue and if the place stops being used for that purpose then it can never revert; and so on and so forth.

Re: Cheo_D March 5, 2011 -
Excellent observations. You're very perceptive. Have you worked in zoning/permitting previsouly? You seem very knowledgable.

Zoning ordinances come in several forms. Some cities to make requirements that adult oriented businesses be a certain distance from each other and from schools, etc. But more than that most zoning ordinances require that bars with live entertainment have a conditional use permit. That basicly means that the local government and owner agree on a set of restrictions and then the planning board has to agree, but more than that it means that anybody nearby has a chance to complain at the public mettings and bring pressure. So the bottom line is that strip clubs need to find places where the neighbors won't complain or the local jurisdiction doesn't care. Either tends towards industrial areas.

Club_Goer, I have had to deal with (= bang head against wall about) location/use regulation in the past (for other sorts of businesses, but one learns things in the process).

I live in SE Michigan and go to clubs mostly in Detroit. I do not see any clubs in the D that are in industrial areas. Many of the clubs are located on 8 Mile Rd, which is a big commercial strip that defines Detroit's Northern border. Other clubs in Detroit are also in major commercial areas. Maybe this is because Detroiters have lived with strip clubs for so long it is no big deal. Another factor could be that Detroit's industrial areas are so nasty that nobody would go to a strip club there.

But I do see this in the suburbs. There is a club in Mt Clemens that is in an industrial area. Then there are the clubs by the airports, which tend to be in out of the way places.

Virtually every SC I've visited here in LA has been in an unincorporated industrial area. For me that's a good thing since my primary clubbing time is Saturday, when those areas of town don't have alot of 9-to-5 traffic.