Tucson- A county supervisor trying to keep a sex shop out of her Catalina Foothills district now wants county government to crack down on most, if not all, adult-entertainment businesses.

Republican Ann Day said that ideally, she wants to strengthen county law so no adult-entertainment business can operate in unincorporated areas of Pima County.

If that’s not possible, she wants to clarify which types of schools, day-care centers and other public facilities can’t have an adult store next door.

“We need to bring it up to date. We need to tighten the ordinance to at least conform to state statute,” said Day, who will bring the issue up at the Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday.

Day has been leading the charge against an effort by the 11-store Fascinations chain to open a new store at 5757 N. Oracle Road, near Rudasill Road.

Neighbors are angry about it because it would do business near a dance studio that offers lessons to children. County officials have refused to give Fascinations a permit to open on the grounds that it doesn’t meet the area’s zoning requirements. Fascinations’ owners say they’re trying to make the proposal fit those rules.

Keeping all adult businesses out of the county is legally impossible, said Tucson attorney Michael Meehan. But the county does have the right to establish zones where such businesses are permitted or banned, said Meehan, who formerly represented the now-demolished Empress Adult Video and Bookstore in the city of Tucson.

“The U.S. Supreme Court says on one hand, freedom of speech includes the freedom to purchase products at such establishments,” Meehan said Friday. “It also says that because of their adult, sexual nature, there is a community interest in protecting the community from having children exposed to some of these materials.”

Currently, county law requires that all adult-related businesses lie at least 1,000 feet from another one and 500 feet from a public, private or parochial school, a public park or a church.

The county defines an adult business as one that sells products or services emphasizing several specific sex acts or anatomical areas, including human genitals, buttocks, anus or certain areas of female breasts.

State law allows counties to go a step further, by regulating specific kinds of businesses such as adult arcades, bookstores, video stores, cabarets, movie theaters, massage establishments and nude modeling studios. Pima County’s laws currently don’t spell out the businesses that can be regulated.

“I don’t know that we can keep out all adult businesses,” Day said, “but we can try to at least keep them out of areas where they don’t belong, like a school or a day-care center.”

Day and Carmine DeBonis, the county’s development services director, said they don’t know if the new law will cover Fascinations because that business is already seeking a permit to operate. When the county tightened up rules in 1998 on hillside development and native-plant protection for new projects, developments already in the pipeline seeking government approval were still required to meet the tougher rules, DeBonis said.

He said he won’t know whether Fascinations would be in the same boat as the housing developers until he analyzes case law.

County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry said he doesn’t think Fascinations is “even in the ballgame” for consideration under a tighter ordinance because it can’t meet current laws. Stores selling more than 25 percent adult material can’t locate in the business zone where Fascinations would go, county officials say.

Fascinations says it can meet that limit; Huckelberry said the company’s past track record indicates that won’t be possible.

Mary Beth Savel, Fascinations’ attorney, couldn’t be reached for comment.