Not only the Gaiety.......

[Barry]

City cleared to XXX out smut

 

BY HELEN PETERSON, TANYANIKA SAMUELS and TRACY CONNOR

DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

 

The Big Apple is about to get a cold shower.

An appeals court gave the city a green light yesterday to shut down strip clubs and other X-rated businesses operating outside adults-only zones.

 

The ruling could force 100 flesh meccas out of residential and tourist neighborhoods, and into industrial areas such as the far West Side of Manhattan.

 

"The only place in Manhattan that you will have adult establishments is surrounding Jets stadium," said Mark Alonso, a lawyer for Ten's Cabaret on E. 21st St.

 

The sex shops plan to appeal, but if they don't prevail, some of the topless bars, video stops and theaters are likely to close - or at least cover up.

 

Scores, for instance, would have to shutter its E. 60th St. emporium but could keep operating its club on W. 28th St., a spokesman said.

 

"The city is going to lose millions in taxes a year," Alonso predicted. "Businessmen don't go out of their way to see dressed women dance."

 

At Stiletto in Times Square, a stripper named Alexis feared she would lose her job. "I have bills to pay. I have to feed my daughter. I have to pay rent," said the 26-year-old dancer. "I make a lot of money here."

 

Mayor Bloomberg, however, hailed the court's decision as a victory for families who don't want porn peddlers next to churches and day care centers.

 

"New Yorkers won't have to push their strollers past porn shops, have topless bars for neighbors or have to worry about peep booths in the back of their corner magazine store," he said.

 

The city has been trying to quarantine the sex industry for a decade, starting with dramatic zoning changes in 1995 that barred adult entertainment from most neighborhoods.

 

Initially, the businesses were subjected to a so-called 60-40 rule: if 40% of their floor space was dedicated to smut, they could only operate in the designated zones.

 

Many owners found ingenious ways to skirt the rule, by stocking 60% of their floor space with copies of one children's video, for example.

 

In 2001, the city retaliated by amending the zoning ordinance to close the 60-40 loophole and use much broader guidelines to define adult businesses.

 

The stores sued to block the changes, and a state Supreme Court judge agreed the revised rules were unconstitutional.

 

But yesterday's 4-0 decision by the Appellate Division reversed that ruling and upheld the new zoning.

 

The clubs can now ask the state's highest court to hear the case, but an appeal is not automatic. In the meantime, they hope to get a stay barring the city from padlocking doors.

 

Originally published on April 13, 2005

[Guest Tampa Yankee]

The Combat Zone Resurrected?

 

Seems like NYC has stumbled on to Boston's recipe for a disasterous eyesore neighborhood. Concentrated adult business and crime and produced a rundown neighborhood to boot. Sent Chinatown into a downward spiral for 20 years. The establishment came to rue the day of that plan.

 

I suspect the authorities are hoping that concentration on the outskirts eventually will kill it . It will kill the neighborhood but smut businesses are remarkable resilient. They will adapt. Some will be hurt but others will thrive. The taxi drivers will make out well.

 

Seems a more effective approach to city aesthetics is to spread the businesses out thinly and keep the store fronts low key. Zone the businesses away from primarily residential neighborhoods, keep a minimum separation from schools and churches and between businesses. Regulate storefront appearances to enforce low key presentation of fare offered. The Gaiety was a near-perfect example. It couldn't get too much lower key except for the hotties out front catching a smoke.

[JT Brooklyn]

RE: The Combat Zone Resurrected?

 

The Gaiety Flew under the Radar for many years because of the Low Key Advertising etc. Why the owners of these XXX Places think they have to Look like Coney Island.. circa. 1950 really is a Dumb Old Fashioned idea.. There Customers will always find them! BUT Times Square is definitely "Mouse" Territory..And "The City" will keep it that way. It's all economics.. :+