2005/06/15 Council Agenda Packet

Fear over the potential consequences of proliferation is a major factor in neighborhood opposition to adult entertainment uses. A businessman on Sixth Avenue in Chelsea who has just had a triple -X video store move into the ground floor space in his office building states: "Then I see every couple of blocks has that kind of store and just worry that the neighbor- hood would change to be like Times Square." A member of Manhattan Community Board 4 is more explicit: "You get three to five of these stores in an area and you create- a strip. Have a strip, and you get prostitution and other related problems." In the Chelsea area, concern is so great about the proliferation of adult entertainment uses that residents and businesspeople joined in a coalition that has been successful in routing four of the nine adult uses in the neighborhood. The Chelsea Action Coalition has held protest marches and rallies to denounce such uses and has picketed adult entertainment uses to intimidate both the store owner and the potential patron. A woman who participated in a protest march with her eight year old daughter saiu she. did so because, when she and her daughter walk down Sixth Avenue, her daughter says: "Don't look, Mommy. It's a very dirty store." The Coalition has publicized the names of landlords who rent space to adult entertain- ment uses, pressuring landlords to evict them. After being picketed, one owner of a triple -X video store, at Seventh Avenue and 23rd Street, converted two-thirds of his store to conven- tional videos, put up a sign stating, "Ladies and Kids are Welcome," and distributed flyers apologizing for opening the store in a residential neighborhood. The Coalition has also reached out to the community board and the City Council, asking for legislative action. Fear of proliferation of adult uses can mobilize community action even when local civic leaders and police officials agree that the sole adult use has provoked no illegal activity or even complaints about quality -of -life issues. When a local bar, located on upper Fourth Avenue in .Bay Ridge, introduced topless dancers and started leafletting the neighborhood, over 1,000 people signed a petition opposing it.. "This is a community issue for those of us who live in Bay Ridge," said one resident. Citing the belief that the topless club sets a precedent that other such establishments might follow, the leader of an ad hoc group formed to fight the topless club also reflected an apprehension that an adult entertainment use attracts people from outside the neighborhood: "This place is bringing in people from all over the place, who are not of, by or for this community. We've got people from Brooklyn Heights, Bensonhurst, members of the Hell's Angels, all kinds of people in there." The club owner, a IonQ-time resident of Bay Ridge, met with local elected officials, civic leaders and police Officials, and offered a number of concessions by curtailing dancing on Sundays and restrict- ing dancing to after 9:00 pm on other nights. The community organization threatened daily Protests if the bar continued to feature topless darncing. The club owner changed the topless 43 EVER00142