OXNARD : City to Weigh Adult Business Ordinance

The Oxnard City Council will consider an ordinance Tuesday to regulate the licensing of sexually oriented businesses and restrict most such businesses to an industrial area of northeast Oxnard.

As approved by the Planning Commission in July, the ordinance would force the city’s two existing adult bookstores to relocate or close within a year, unless that would prove an economic hardship. Then the businesses would have three years to move.

The measure would prohibit adult businesses--including X-rated bookstores, nude model studios and adult theaters--from operating within 1,000 feet of any church, school, youth facility, park, public building or residential area. The businesses would be required to be separated from each other by 750 feet.

The same restrictions would apply to adult motels, but the motels would be allowed to operate in business research areas.

An interim ordinance that bans adult businesses in prominent entryways to the city is set to expire Sept. 29.

Pressure for a new ordinance grew after neighborhood and church activists failed to halt the opening of Oxnard Book & Video on Vineyard Avenue in 1991. A council-appointed citizens committee was appointed early last year to recommend revisions to the city’s adult-use regulations.

The City Council later agreed to allow attorneys with the Virginia-based National Law Center for Children and Families to draft the new ordinance. The center is affiliated with the National Coalition Against Pornography, an alliance of 70 religious and private organizations.

Before approving the measure, the Planning Commission reduced the size of the area designated for adult uses by a third, leaving about 825 acres east of Rice Road and north of 5th Street and two small parcels south of Hueneme Road.