WEST WARWICK, Rhode Island — If you want to open an “adult entertainment” business in town, you can do it.
Just be sure to keep it away from schools.
And churches.
And neighborhoods.
And playgrounds.
And funeral homes.
And any place that sells liquor.
And any other “adult” shops.
Other than that, come on in.
An ordinance that the Town Council adopted unanimously last week restricts such businesses — sex-paraphernalia shops and pornographic bookstores, cinemas and video stores as well as establishments that provide live nude entertainment — to commercial- or industrial-zoned property, and only with a special-use permit.
“There are places these stores can go; they just have to watch out where they do go,” said Councilwoman Filomena Gustafson, who sponsored the ordinance.
Such businesses must be no closer than 1,500 feet — that’s five football fields — from a church, a school, a park, anywhere children congregate, a funeral home or a crematorium. They can’t be within 1,000 feet of a neighborhood or within 2,000 feet of any other “adult entertainment or sexually oriented business.” And they can’t be within 500 feet of an establishment that sells liquor.
“Most towns have the same distances in their ordinances,” Gustafson said. “We kind of looked around to see [how other communities handled it] and this is how we came to a lot of these figures. To be in the general ballpark, we felt that 1,000 to 1,500 feet was a good distance away from churches, ballfields, homes and schools, compared to now, where the business is right in people’s backyards.”
Gustafson started considering the ordinance late last year, when an X-Citement Video store moved from 53 Providence St. to 263 Quaker Lane, just a fence away from the backyard of the 20-unit Quaker Terrace condominium complex, and a few doors down from an ice cream parlor.
The first attempt to pass an ordinance was sent back because it was considered too restrictive. It would have created what some called a “red-light district” in the West Warwick Business Park. That didn’t please town officials, who have been courting Dial Family Resorts for some time, helping move the red tape that will allow the company to build a $140-million indoor water park resort there.
The Planning Board also needed to sign off on the ordinance. A revised ordinance was presented on Feb. 5 with all of the proper approvals, and the possibility that pornography businesses could, theoretically, be situated anywhere in town, rather than in any one ward. That change — in addition to adding the restriction on distances from funeral parlors — is what won over Councilman Peter F. Calci Jr.
The ordinance essentially confines “adult” businesses to a swath of land on the southerly side of Interstate 95, closer to the East Greenwich line than to West Warwick Town Hall. The ordinance would apply only to new businesses. “Right now, there are only a few pieces of properties that exist that fit the criteria, but that doesn’t mean [the businesses] can’t exist somewhere in future,” Calci said.
In theory, a business owner could purchase a large block of land in any ward in town, petition to have it rezoned to commercial or industrial and apply for the special-use permit, Calci said. There are areas in each ward that could be bought and rezoned — such as golf courses, he said — but town officials would have to approve that change.
And the probability of a business owner wanting to jump through all of those hoops should they find a patch of land that people are willing to sell?
“It’s extremely unlikely,” Calci said.
“So we have been very careful in how we put this together to protect the residents of West Warwick. I think we did an excellent job.”