2005/06/15 Council Agenda Packet

App. B / Adult Businesses troversial and equally often unsuccessful. Much community sentiment against sexually oriented businesses is an out- growth of hostility to sexually explicit forms of expression. Any successful strategy to combat sexually oriented busi- nesses must take into accu int the constitutional rights to free speech which limit available remedies. Only those pornographic materials which are determined to be "obscene" have no constitutional protection. As ex- plained later in more detail, only that pornography which, according to community standards and taken as a whole, "appeals to the prurient interest" (as opposed to an interest in healthy sexuality), describes or depicts sexual conduct in a "patently offensive way" and "lacks serious literary, artis- tic, political or scientific value," can be prohibited or prose- cuted. Miller u. California, 413 U.S. 15, 24 (1973). Other pornography and the businesses which purvey it can only be regulated where a harm is demonstrated and the remedy is sufiiciently tailored to prevent that harm without burdening First Amendment rights. In order to reduce or eliminate the impacts of sexually oriented businesses, each community must find the balance between the dangers of pornography and the constitutional rights to free speech. Each community must have evidence of harm. Each commu- nity must know the range of legal tools which can be used to combat the adverse impacts of pornography and sexually oriented businesses. On June 21, 1988, Attorney General Hubert Humphrey III announced the formation of a Working Group on the Regu- lation of Sexually Oriented Businesses to assist public offi- cials and private citizens in finding legal ways to reduce the impacts of sexually oriented businesses. Members of the Working Group were selected for their special expertise in the areas of zoning and law enforcement and included bipar- tisan representatives of the state Legislature as well as members of both the Minneapolis and St. Paul city councils who have played critical roles in developing city ordinances Minnesota Attorney General's Report / App. B regulating sexually oriented businesses. The Working Group heard testimony and conducted brief- ings on the impacts of sexually oriented businesses on crime and communities and the methods available to reduce or eliminate these impacts. Extensive research was conducted to review regulation and prosecution strategies used in other states and to analyze the legal ramifications of these strate- gies. As testimony was presented, the Working Group reached a consensus that a comprehensive approach is required to reduce or eliminate the impacts of sexually oriented busi- nesses. Zoning and licensing regulations are needed to pro- tect residents from the intrusion of "combat zone" sexual crime and harassment into their neighborhoods. Prosecution of obscenity has played an important role in each of the cities which have significantly reduced or eliminated pornography. The additional threat posed by the involvement of organized crime, if proven to exist, may justify the resources needed for prosecution of obscenity or require use of a forfeiture or racketeering statute. The Working Group determined that it could neither ad- vocate prohibition of all sexually explicit material nor the use of regulation as a pretext to eliminate all sexually oriented businesses. This conclusion is no endorsement of pornogra- phy or the businesses which profit from it. The Working Group believes much pornography conveys a message which is degrading to women and an affront to human dignity. Commercial pornography promotes the misuse of vulnerable people and can be used by either a perpetrator or a victim to rationalize sexual violence. Sexually oriented businesses have a deteriorating effect upon neighborhoods and draw involvement of organized crime. Communities are not powerless to combat these problems. But to be most effective in defending itself from pornography each community must work from the evidence and within the law. The report of this Working Group is designed to 378 X79 l