2005/06/15 Council Agenda Packet

V. A.nULT ENTERTAINMENT IMPACTS IN NEW YORK CITY Impacts Identified by the City Planning Commission, 1977 On January 26, 1977, the City Planning Commission reported to the Board of Estimate its recommendation for zoning text changes relating to adult uses. The recommended zoning changes would have reduced existing concentrations of adult uses and prevented future concentrations, "... thereby substantially reducing the adverse economic and social effects that these concentrations produce. At the same time, adult uses will be prevented from disrupting residential neighborhoods by regulations requiring all adult usesto be located at least 500 feet from the nearest residence district boundary, X56 In its report, the Commission cited several negative impacts of adult uses including economic factors, increased criminal activity, the damaging influences on minors and the disruptive effects that adult uses have on neighboring residential communities and the youth of such communities. At the public hearing on the proposed text amendments, many of the speakers appeared in favor of the proposal, expressing concerns about the blighting effect that the concentration of adult uses has had on the West Side of Manhattan. Some identified other reasons to support the proposal. For example, a psychiatrist who was a former Deputy Commissioner of the City's Addiction Services Agency and founder of Phoenix House — the city's major residential addiction rehabilitation program, said that the growth of adult uses has " ... a direct bearing upon the number of young people who become addicted 'to heroin or dependent upon other drugs." He described the adult entertainment business as parasitic, attracting and victimizing adolescents and breeding prostitution and addiction. The doctor stated that limiting or dispersing adult uses can destroy the "pathological matrix." Most who spoke in opposition to the proposal did so because it would continue to permit adult uses near their communities. The Commission noted that it analyzed the efforts of several municipalities, including Boston, Detroit, Minneapolis, Dallas and Atlantic City, to combine the best efforts of all these cities in a regulatory plan for New York. The Commission rejected the Boston concentration model, stating in the report that "Statistics indicate that the implementation of this zoning method in Boston has resulted in an increase in both the crime rate of the Boston Business and Entertainment district and an increase in the vacancy rate of the surrounding buildings." The Commission felt that a dispersion strategy, modelled after Detroit's regulatory plan, would 56 Report of the City Planning Commission, N 760137 ZRY, January 26, 1977, Calendar No. 23. 35 E V ER00134