By Cindy Schroeder
The Cincinnati Enquirer

FORT MITCHELL - Adult bookstores, strip clubs and other sexually oriented businesses won't be able to open new operations or expand existing ones in Kenton County communities that follow a recommendation by county planners to temporarily halt such uses.

In a 15-0 vote Thursday night, the Kenton County Planning Commission recommended that local governments approve the moratorium, as recommended by a group of lawyers and planning officials led by Kenton County Attorney Garry Edmondson.

The moratorium would last until May 15, or until Duncan and Associates, a nationally recognized consulting firm on zoning issues from Austin, Texas, finishes a study on how best to regulate adult businesses in Kenton and Campbell counties, said Mike Schwartz, deputy director of land use planning for the Northern Kentucky Area Planning Commission.

The $42,000, six- to eight-month study that began in March will analyze existing licensing and zoning requirements for sexually oriented businesses, provide the basis for developing a model licensing regulation for the two counties and will consider legal ramifications in evaluating appropriate locations for sexually oriented businesses in Kenton County.

"This seems like a reasonable request for a complicated issue that we've been dealing with for a very long time," planning commission member Alex Weldon said of the moratorium.

Edmondson said that he sought the moratorium after operators of a dance club and an adult bookstore recently scouted potential locations in Kenton County. He said the moratorium also is needed to protect the many cities that don't have protective regulations in place.

"I endorse this 100 percent," said David Schneider, who serves as the Kenton County Planning Commission's attorney. "There's no question this is needed."

Kenton County Fiscal Court and all of the county's cities now must OK the moratorium.

Edmondson said that he will recommend they do so as soon as possible.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that communities must provide zones where sexually oriented businesses can locate, no matter how undesirable residents and business owners may find them.

By regulating such uses on a regional basis, local officials hope to have more say about where sexually oriented businesses can operate. Options include setting aside designated areas, as a few Northern Kentucky communities have done, or restricting where such businesses can operate based on factors such as their distance from schools and houses of worship.

"If there are legal challenges for what we ultimately do, the study will provide support," said Covington City Solicitor Jay Fossett. "We see this as a community issue."

No one spoke against the proposal Thursday. Edmondson told the planning commission he had not heard any opposition to it.

In other land-use cases, courts have upheld a community's right to impose moratoriums, Schwartz said.

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld a two-year moratorium on development on a Lake Tahoe, Calif., flood plain several years ago, and an attorney general's opinion has supported moratoriums in land-use cases, lawyers told county planners.

While Schneider thinks Kenton County's moratorium can be defended in court, he said local officials ultimately will have to defend any challenge in their community.

E-mail cschroeder@enquirer.com