DuPage County turns attention to adult businesses

Some DuPage County Board members have started a monthslong process to develop plans to mitigate what they call the "negative secondary" effects of adult businesses on the community.

The newly formed six-member ad hoc committee met for the first time Tuesday to begin examining issues related to adult businesses in unincorporated areas.

"Over the past year, the county board has received complaints from its residents regarding the negative secondary impacts of adult business uses in unincorporated DuPage County," said county board member Julie Renehan, who serves as chairwoman of the panel.

By law, DuPage can't ban adult businesses because it lacks home-rule power, but it can restrict where they are located.

Paul Hoss, the county's planning and zoning administration coordinator, said there used to be roughly a dozen adult businesses - including strip clubs, spas, massage parlors and bookstores - in DuPage in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

As a result of zoning changes, the county successfully reduced the number of "legal" adult businesses to one - the Zebulon Adult Boutique near Roselle. That business can operate because of a federal court order from 1986, Hoss said.

But last year, residents started raising concerns about other businesses, including an adult photography studio that opened near Wheaton. Then, in late September, a fatal shooting left a 29-year-old security guard dead at the Bella One Spa near Roselle.

Hoss said the Bella One Spa is now closed. Meanwhile, county officials still are working to determine whether the adult photography studio and a second establishment near Roselle are indeed adult business uses.

Nevertheless, Hoss says DuPage's zoning ordinance "has reached its limitations on dealing with the operations of adult business uses."

The county board recently approved a text amendment that expanded the "adult business" definition to include businesses that provide service only to people 18 or older. Businesses with certain licenses and permits, including bars and liquor stores, are exempt.

Under the previous ordinance, adult photography studios weren't defined as adult businesses. Now they are.

Still, the text amendment applies only to new businesses - not those that opened before the change.

So the county is proposing to develop a "comprehensive regulatory program" that would include zoning and building codes, liquor control ordinances and licensing. If approved, the regulations would apply to existing businesses.

Officials say the goal is to counteract the negative secondary impacts of adult businesses, including robberies, assaults and other crime.

"To be clear," Renehan said, "the purpose of the hearings is not to impose undue restrictions on constitutionally protected conduct."

Renehan said the panel could make its recommendation to the full county board in April.

But first, the committee will hear testimony from experts and the public including law enforcement officials, public health officials, social service providers and real estate professionals.