Houston- Some of Houston’s best-known topless clubs might have to relocate because of a federal judge’s recent ruling, city officials said Monday.

In the latest decision on local regulation of sexually oriented businesses, U.S. District Judge Nancy Atlas has ruled the city can double, from 750 to 1,500 feet, the distance required between the clubs and “sensitive” areas including schools and churches.

That new requirement could imperil dozens of topless clubs and adult book stores.

Atlas wrote that the ordinance, passed in 1997, didn’t violate the businesses’ First Amendment rights because alternate sites are available where they could relocate and comply with the regulations.

The businesses could appeal last week’s ruling, preventing immediate enforcement. Attorneys for those businesses, who filed suit over the ordinance in 1997, couldn’t be reached for comment Monday.

The decision is the latest twist in a years-long legal battle about changes in 1997 to the city’s sexually oriented businesses ordinance, and a victory for police and some neighborhood activists, who have sought tougher regulations for years.

“They may be lawful businesses, but they create a danger to our kids,” said Houston police Capt. Steve Jett, who heads the department’s Vice Division. “It’s just a big success for Houston to be able to regulate where these sexually oriented businesses operate.”

The ruling could affect well-known establishments including The Men’s Club at 3303 Sage, and Treasures at 5647 Westheimer. Managers at those facilities couldn’t be reached Monday, but city officials said they wouldn’t be eligible for licenses under the ordinance Atlas upheld.

It restricts sexually oriented businesses from operating within 1,500 feet of schools, parks, churches and day-care facilities.

Such businesses must be at least 1,000 feet from each other and outside of residential areas.

The ordinance also set other rules that courts have upheld previously. It requires managers and performers to be licensed by the city, and it bars physical contact between performers and customers. The ordinance also addressed signage, structural aspects of adult video and bookstores, and indoor lighting. And it banned private “VIP rooms” in topless clubs.

The businesses that sued the city could now ask the judge to prevent the city from enforcing the distance provision in the ordinance, pending an appeal to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.

If a stay were granted, the city likely would ask the higher court to remove it.

“The issue for us is, how quickly we can begin enforcing it,” said City Attorney Arturo Michel.

Jett said nine businesses that received permits to operate are in areas that wouldn’t violate the ordinance. Two dozen others were granted temporary licenses, pending resolution of the distance issue. At least 100, he said, haven’t applied because of the legal uncertainty.

Michel said the distance requirement was, in many ways, the “heart” of the ordinance.

The appeals court had settled other objections to the law, but required the lower court to determine whether the distance requirement would deprive the businesses of “reasonable alternative avenues of communication.”

During a 10-day trial before Atlas late last year, Michel said the city argued there were plenty of other sites.

“This is speech, even if it’s commercial speech,” he said of the First Amendment issues raised. “We had to show that there are other places in which they can locate.”

The ruling was good news for Councilwoman Toni Lawrence, who heads the council’s regulation committee.

“It’s my understanding that everything the city wanted was in her ruling,” Lawrence said. “Now we just have to wait and see what the appeal is.”