Porn Valley- Efforts by local governments to regulate adult businesses have spawned legal battles across the country, with at least 10 cases decided by federal appeals courts this year.

“There is more adult-business litigation under way now than I’ve ever seen,” said C. Michael Hatzell, a lawyer who represents several adult businesses in a dispute with Louisville.

And in Southern Indiana, an adult video and novelty store is suing New Albany in federal court, saying it was illegally shut down in February only an hour or two after the City Council imposed a six-month moratorium on the opening of sexually oriented businesses.

Seven of the 10 rulings handed down by federal courts this year have gone against adult businesses, according to a review by Eric Kelly, a lawyer and professor of urban planning at Ball State University in Muncie, Ind., who specializes in such issues.

He said governments appear to be doing a better job of drafting ordinances that don’t violate the free-speech rights of the business owners – a typical argument in litigation.

Local governments say they want to establish where such businesses can operate, and when.

Eddie Pressler says he understands how such business can affect neighborhoods. He owns Grizzly Creek Outfitters on Fern Valley Road in Louisville, next to an adult business that opened early this year.

In the nine months after the Pure Pleasure adult video and bookstore opened, Pressler said, his business fell 25 percent to 30 percent.

The adult store also raises issues that go beyond economics, Pressler said.

“I have two teenage daughters,” he said. “I’m embarrassed to have them come work here.”

Pure Pleasure’s owners are sensitive to their neighbors, said Frank Mascagni, their attorney. “But we have the right to open like any other business.”

Those competing interests reflect the difficult task local governments face as they try to regulate the industry, whose sales have been estimated at up to $10 billion a year in the United States.

U.S. Supreme Court rulings have made it clear that local governments have the authority to regulate adult businesses by establishing where they can operate and when, Kelly said.

But lawsuits around the country are raising questions about how those regulations are being applied and whether they impose too-stringent limits on the business operators’ rights.

The most recent Supreme Court decision on the matter, issued in June, reinforced local governments’ authority to license adult businesses, Kelly said. It answered a question about how adult-business operators must be allowed to appeal adverse decisions by municipal officials, he said.

Now the adult industry’s lawyers are focusing on other issues.

Industry lawyers want the courts to require specific proof of increased crime, falling property values or other problems caused by adult businesses before local governments strictly regulate them, Kelly said.

Lawyers for local governments want the courts to accept general evidence, including impact studies from other communities.

Evidence of pornographic litter and prostitution around adult stores in Spokane, Wash., was a deciding factor in that city winning a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision in May over World Wide Video Inc.

In Louisville, lawyers for the city and for two-dozen adult businesses, including Pure Pleasure, argued recently before Jefferson Circuit Judge Steve Ryan about whether evidence on the impact of adult businesses on neighborhoods should be admitted at this point in the case.

Ryan asked both sides to file final briefs soon about the businesses’ impact on their neighborhoods, Hatzell said.

The Metro Louisville ordinance, enacted in February, establishes a 1 a.m. closing time for adult businesses, stipulates that peep-show booths must be in view of store employees, requires dancers to wear pasties and G-strings and stay at least 6 feet from customers, and prevents dancers from accepting tips.

Jefferson County Attorney Irv Maze said he thinks the Supreme Court’s June decision bolsters Louisville’s legal position. But he said he doesn’t expect the legal battles across the country to end soon because so much money is at stake for the adult businesses.

Although Mascagni agreed that the Supreme Court’s June decision is significant, he contends the Louisville ordinance is so intrusive it still violates legal guidelines established by the high court.

And Mascagni said a recent Kentucky Court of Appeals decision bolsters his view that local governments must provide specific evidence that adult businesses are affecting their neighborhoods to strictly regulate them.

Louisville has been unable to enforce its ordinance since early March, when the adult businesses obtained a restraining order from Ryan.

In the New Albany case, the lawyer for New Albany DVD argues that the city violated his clients’ First Amendment rights by closing the store and that it must submit specific evidence about the impact of adult businesses on neighborhoods if it wants to keep the store from reopening.

City officials shut the store down by citing its lack of building and zoning permits. New Albany DVD’s operators said the city illegally refused to perform a final inspection they had requested.