Letter: 'Adult' business clusters invite mayhem

Letter: 'Adult' business clusters invite mayhem



Lew Norris
St. Augustine
Publication Date: 08/24/07


Editor: I attended the Aug. 13 St. Augustine City Commission meeting and spoke against having a designated area for adult entertainment. At this same meeting, a woman had researched the internet and found that hundreds of cities throughout the country passing ordinances to regulate this industry had decided not to concentrate them in one locale and to have a buffer zone between them. (She left copies of her research for each commissioner).

People who have moved here from Atlanta, Detroit, New York, Boston, and Philadelphia said at this meeting or the prior one that crimes, drugs, prostitution, and homicides had all followed in areas where these businesses were concentrated. Adult businesses can be regulated, but the drug pushers and their customers cannot be regulated.

Inevitably as junkies need money to finance their habit, muggings and burglaries will break out from any so-called "confinement area" and visit that misery on downtown and even neighborhoods on Anastasia Island.

The U.S. Supreme Court may say that sexually oriented businesses have First Amendment rights, but the court does not say they all have to be clustered in one area.

Though it may not seem so, it is far better to risk having one establishment in dozens of locations, than to have dozens in one red-light district where criminals can maximize their resources.

All the cities mentioned earlier have spent millions cleaning up these areas. It's a lot easier to get them than to get rid of them.

Will St. Augustine make the same mistake?

Lew Norris

St. Augustine