Glendale’s ordinance restricts adult bookstores and cinemas to the downtown area and requires they be at least 500 feet from churches, schools, parks and residential zones, and at least 1,000 feet from any other adult business. Generally, cities have the power to restrict the location of adult businesses. “I asked them to describe their operation to me, and they said it was just like a bathhouse, only without the water,” said City Zoning Administrator Edith Fuentes.
“In essence, sexual encounter businesses are places where consenting adults would go to freely engage in casual sex with whoever happens to be there at the time, but not for payment or prostitution,” City Planning Director John McKenna said. If opened, the club would be the first sexually oriented business in conservative Glendale since the city’s only adult bookstore closed down in the late 1980s.
Officials have proposed strengthening city control of adult businesses after a receiving inquiries about opening a members-only club where gay men meet for sex.īlue Fountain Inc., which runs one such club in the Silver Lake district of Los Angeles, has told city planners it is interested in opening a second operation in an industrial area on San Fernando Road.īecause officials believe the club would not violate existing city zoning provisions, several council members have proposed amending those rules to restrict clubs to areas now open to adult businesses, such as bookstores and cinemas.