Federal Appeals Court Favors Adult Bookstore

GRAND RAPIDS -- The Velvet Touch adult bookstore on 28th Street SE can stay, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.

That's because the Grand Rapids' ordinance restricting "adult businesses" was too broad to meet constitutional tests when the purple porn shop opened in 2001, the 6th Circuit Court said in an 11-page decision.

The decision affirmed U.S. District Judge Gordon Quist's 2002 ruling that the ordinance was unconstitutional. The same ordinance was ruled unconstitutional by U.S. District Judge Richard Enslen in an unrelated case several weeks later.

Since then, city commissioners have adopted an ordinance that broadens the definition of an adult-oriented business and allows them to operate in areas zoned for heavy commercial or industrial uses.

Barb Bush, president of the Alger Heights Business Association, said the group's members do not like the store, but have learned to live with it.

"There's just not a whole lot we can do about it," she said.

http://www.mlive.com/news/grpress/in...3717183370.xml

Interesting case if anyone of you have been following this.

This could have the potential for other bookstores to challenge similar zoning restrictions in your city and, im pretty certain there are going to be some lawyers rubbing their hands together at the thought of such challenges.

Regards,

Lee

Thanks for that post. I make it a point to keep on current events on the legal issues side of the biz. Cities and towns can't arbitrarily restrict adult businesses without studying the secondary effects and making a proveable case that it's necessary to restrict their free speech rights. We had a similar case here with Deja Vu. Once the city found out that they had to actually prove their case, they backed down.