Zoning Keeps a Strip Club Closed

I worked in city planning for over twenty years. Much of that time was in zoning. I particularly understand zoning of adult or sexually oriented businesses. Just from reading the newspaper article, early on it states that it was a legal, nonconforming business. That means that it was likely legal and conformed to all zoning requirements when it was first built. But, the zoning requirements changed after that. It's now nonconforming. The business may remain at that location, mostly likely only for a limited period of time. It is generally very difficult to obtain approval for an expansion of a nonconforming business. By nature of its nonconforming status, the local jurisdiction wants to eliminate that business from that location, not allow it to expand.

Another strip club, but in the L.A. area, the Hawaii Theater in Industry, CA ran into a similar problem, due to its nonconforming status. The essence is, that once a property or business owner who has been determined to be nonconforming, time is limited to remain in business at that location, and any expansion usually isn't worthwile.

If you were married and had kids living with you, how close would you want to live to strip club? I think it's often self-fulfilling prophecy that strip clubs are sleazy. But that said, is it so restrictive to try to keep the strip clubs is the are of warehouses, lumber yards, parts of town where kids woudn't normally go?

I don't think the outside of strip clubs are any worse than bars. Of course, many don't want their kids hanging out near bars either!

"Just from reading the newspaper article, early on it states that it was a legal, nonconforming business. That means that it was likely legal and conformed to all zoning requirements when it was first built. But, the zoning requirements changed after that. It's now nonconforming. The business may remain at that location, mostly likely only for a limited period of time."

Well, that depends on if the nonconforming status was because of the building itself (i.e., the setbacks, height limit, or allowable floor area ratio/lot coverage, etc. changed), or because of the building's use. Where I live, if a conflicting use moves into the restricted radius around an adult establishment, they've basically got 5 years to shut down. But if you build a building and then the zoning envelope gets more restrictive, your building is allowed to stay the way it is forever, and you can probably even rebuild it the same way it was if there's some sort of disaster. I can't look at the article to see which kind of issue this club had (browser gives heavy malware warnings), but either one is possible.

The thing I don't understand is, didn't they have to go in and apply for a building permit and get zoning approval prior to building anything?

@ xedin: It's most likely the use that became nonconforming, not the structure. I don't know what the amortization schedule is for termination of nonconforming uses for the city of Warren, MI, so the article is all I have to go by. When either becomes nonconforming, cities don't usually like to allow the expansion of a nonconforming use or structure. Yes, any city I ever worked in required zoning approval prior to issuance of a building permit. The article seems to indicate that at least some, maybe most, of the work was done without the benefit of a building permit. Then, when the club got caught it tried to apply for a zoning variance, after the fact.

So that's why the building sits unfinished. I grew up near Jon Jons and remember when it first opened. It's been a thorn in the side of the City of Warren, the state of Michigan's 2nd largest city, ever since. Not knowing the details, of the city's reason for denying the expansion, I can only speculate. It was a good club, trying to exist in Macomb County which only has one other strip club, the Traffic Light,15 miles or so to the Northeast in Mt. Clemens. Lap dances were all that were offered to my knowledge. I had stopped in a few times and the babes were fine enough, but the dances were lame due to the city's oversight. A few years back as business had steadily deteriorated, despite numerous changes in their business model, the construction began again to update the club. It stopped, and the building sits there unfinished.

They are screwed. After reading the article, they tried pulling a fast one on the City by substantially deviating from the approved building plans. I can't say I blame the city, even though I mourn the loss of one of Macomb County's only 2 clubs. I guess we'll continue clubbing to the south in good ole Wayne County, home of some of the better strip clubs in the USA, IMO

I've been informed that I was mistaken in my assertion about Warren being the 2nd most populous city in Michigan. Our friend here at TUSCL is correct. Grand Rapids has ecliped my former hometown.

I finally got to read the article, and vincemichaels pretty much has it. They had a permit approval, and then took it a bit further than the permit allowed. I would guess that the court case hinged on whether the demolition they did actually was enough for the city to decide that they had essentially demolished the building. So, the zoning inspector probably came out on a routine inspection, realized that what they were building wasn't quite matching what the permit was for, and shut them down.

@ VM, and xedin: Yes you guys both have it now. Good summaries of the situation. It seems as if the club was granted "an inch" and it took "a foot."

Yeah, I work in architecture, and used to work for a firm that got a lot of business with permitting stuff that owners had built without a permit or added/messed up during construction without revising the original permit, so this is familiar territory.