2005/06/15 Council Agenda Packet

There have been numerous letters and petitions from community groups and loca] organiza- tions protesting trc intrusion of adult uses into their community and asking the City to find solutionsfor the problem. "(We) just wish to live quietly and raise (our) families in quiet residential communities," wrote the president of one borough -wide civic group. A taxpayers' group in Glendale said that having to pass adult uses was offensive for children and adults who participated in activities at the many schools and churches prevalent in the area: Another neighborhood group in Queens asked for a moratorium on any new sexually -oriented bars. The executive director of The New York Foundling Hospital was concerned that their young charges were exposed to the "blatant and offensive" signs advertising triple -X video stores in Chelsea. A neighborhood association in Manhattan, wrote that it "sees the proliferation of pornographic businesses as a dangerous trend that' violates the integrity of our East Side neighborhood." A resident of the East Side wrote: "We, who live in the city's residential areas, are not opposed to free speech, we just feel porn establishments should exercise their free speech in more appropriate commercially zoned areas. The tenants of a residential hotel in the Times Square area submitted a number of signed petitions and wrote: "Although the people who live in this building and in this neighborhood can prove no hard numbers about how their businesses have been harmed or prove that crime has increased, they do know that the quality of their lives and their neighborhood is being deleteriously impacted." Another civic group summed it up when it wrote: "many law-abiding citizens view these . establish- ments as a threat to the quality of life in their neighborhoods. Such concerns are quite valid and should not be easily dismissed." 47 EVER00146