Geneva down to one area for adult businesses

Residents and businessmen near Glengarry Drive and State Street won't have to worry about sex-oriented businesses setting up shop in the Glengarry Industrial Park.

The Geneva City Council is setting boundaries in such a way that the industrial park would be off-limits to sex novelty-item stores, strip clubs, adult video stores and the like.

Monday it voted 9-0 as a committee of the whole to recommend such businesses be kept at least 900 feet away from residences, schools, churches, parks and day-care centers. It will take a binding vote Jan. 3.

City workers had previously recommended a distance of 750 feet, which would give the city two areas where such businesses could be set up. The change in the zoning ordinance is being made proactively.

Currently, Geneva does not have a specific zoning classification for adult uses, so a sex-oriented bookstore or a nightclub could open anywhere a regular bookstore or nightclub is allowed. The proposed new classification restricts adult-use businesses to areas zoned for light industrial use.

City attorney Charles Radovich has cautioned the council that the stricter boundaries increase the chances that a business owner could protest that not enough area of town has been designated for adult uses. The one remaining area is on the outskirts, east of Kirk Road and north of Route 38, near Averill Drive. A federal court has upheld zoning laws that restricted adult uses to as little as 4 percent of a town's area. The Geneva proposal would be 2.3 percent, or 150 acres.

Residents near the Glengarry Industrial Park pointed out previously that it has a McDonald's restaurant children from the neighborhood visit. And a factory owner said she would be embarrassed to have clients visit her at her factory if there were sex-oriented businesses in the park.