Cooled off: Neighbors’ persistent battle against adult store reinforced by court ruling

Diana Sahagun

Wednesday, May 9, 2001 | 10:44 a.m.

Residents of a West Charleston neighborhood for years complained of pornographic literature blowing into their back yards and lining the gutters along the path their children took to school.

Their fight to close the Hot Stuff Adult and Video Store, which they say didn't belong in a commercial area, paid off, and four years later the bookstore has been shut down and will likely remain so, thanks to a recent ruling by a federal appeals court.

The giant red sign remains at Hot Stuff, near Charleston and Decatur boulevards, and the store appears inviting from the street, until a closer look reveals blackened windows and dusty locks.

Closed for almost a year, the store is a reminder of a neighborhood that banded together, and a city that drafted new codes to ensure its laws relating to sexually oriented businesses could withstand a constitutional challenge.

Future sexually oriented businesses trying to locate in the city will face tighter rules that also will guarantee they receive due process if a license is denied.

Maye Clark, who helped form the group Porn Only in Zone as a result of the Hot Stuff conflict, said after the store opened in 1997 residents in the area began finding discarded video jackets and other sexually explicit materials in their neighborhood.

Children, Clark said, would gather the materials as they would walk from their homes to nearby Red Rock Elementary School, Hyde Park Middle School, and Frank Garside Middle School.

"We had this one family that walked to Red Rock Elementary School, and her husband would go out and walk along the route in the morning and pick up the stuff so that she and the children didn't have to walk by it," Clark said.

Hot Stuff opened in 1997 with a temporary bookstore license after store representatives told the city that about 30 percent of shop merchandise would be adult videos.

The store is in an area zoned for commercial activity. Adult businesses are only allowed in industrial areas.

When the city audited Hot Stuff during its temporary license period, it determined that 58 percent of store inventory was adult oriented.

While the neighborhood group protested in front of the business and at Las Vegas City Hall, Deputy City Attorney William Henry defended the city against countless lawsuits filed by the store's owner, Baby Tam & Co., over four years. The store's lawyer argued that the city's licensing and zoning codes weren't consistent and fought the city's attempt to close its doors.

A three-member panel of judges in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals April 26 ruled that the city's ordinances restricting sexually oriented businesses -- which were recently amended as a result of the lawsuits -- are constitutional.

"The implication is that someone applying for one of these licenses in the future can be assured that the city's licensing, land use and regulation codes are constitutional," Henry said.

During the past four years, federal and district courts observed defects with the city's ordinances while wading through the Hot Stuff case.

As a result, state law has been changed to give owners a prompt hearing by a district court -- 30 days -- if a license for an adult business is denied.

An amendment to the city's ordinance also now mandates that the council must act on a license application within 30 days after it has been filed and the application fees have been paid. If the council does not act in that time period, the license will automatically be granted.

The time element was at the crux of the city's attempt to close the store.

Once the city terminated Hot Stuff's license after auditing the store, Baby Tam & Co. sued and won at the district court level after a judge found the city did not provide a quick judicial ruling when the store appealed the city's denial of its business license.

Henry went before the Legislature last year to request a change in state law to grant timely review of licenses, and a federal court reversed the district court's ruling. Hot Stuff was shut down in July 2000 and has been closed since.

"Our object isn't to tighten restrictions, the object was to come up with a code, as it has to do with these businesses, which is constitutional," Henry said.

Neighbors like Clark fought the store's location, enlisting the help of City Councilman Michael McDonald. The store is in the ward he represents.

Residents insist there is a place for adult businesses: in industrial zones.

Michael Stein, an attorney representing Hot Stuff, said his clients are still weighing options whether to appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. The store was never granted a permanent business license and would have to reapply to reopen.

He said the point isn't whether the business was located near a neighborhood, but whether the city's licensing strategy was legal.

He added now that the city's ordinances have been changed, other sexually oriented businesses can be assured that if the city's licensing procedure is not followed, they can receive timely review by a judge.

"We were responsible for substantial laws being changed which protect everyone from ad agencies to newspapers, because now if you have to get a permit, there are time frames which the city has to follow," Stein said. "And if they deny you, a judge has to hear your case."

Stein, who disputes the city's inventory that alleged that more than 50 percent of the store's merchandise was sexually oriented, said the city granted the business four temporary licenses, to give it time to enact new ordinances to push the business out of the location.

"The city played games with us and wouldn't issue us a license, because in the back door they were writing new ordinances to zone us out," he said.