from www.washingtonpost.com – The Prince George’s County Council is scheduled to vote on two measures Wednesday that would impose new restrictions on adult book and video stores in response to resident complaints that the establishments attract crime and ruin the character of their neighborhoods.

The proposals are the latest effort by the council to clamp down on establishments that many residents say degrade the quality of life in the county, such as liquor stores, pawn shops and check-cashing businesses.

The measures would confine the porn shops to areas of the county zoned for industrial use, moving them out of strip malls and mixed-use centers often located near residential areas, said council member Thomas E. Dernoga (D-Laurel), a leading proponent of the bills. The measures also restrict the shops’ hours of operation and require that their owners get special county licenses to operate.

The measures do not limit what types of materials the shops can sell, Dernoga said, and therefore do not violate the First Amendment.

“Community leaders have been urging the county to remove these blights from our residential neighborhoods,” Dernoga said. “The bill does not regulate content, it only regulates when and where” the businesses can operate.

Like many localities across the country, Prince George’s has run into several legal challenges over past legislation that sought to restrict the local pornography industry. In 2003, a state court struck down as unconstitutional a county law that required adult book stores to be licensed. In 2007, a federal judge prevented the county from enforcing a ban on nudity and sexual displays at businesses that sell alcohol. Earlier this year, a federal judge struck down a similar state law aimed at Prince George’s strip clubs because, U.S. District Judge Marvin J. Garbis ruled, the law carved out an unconstitutional exception for a particular business owner.

However, officials said the county is on firm legal footing with the bills being weighed today because they are patterned after a 2004 U.S. Supreme Court decision which said the city of Littleton, Colo., had the right to restrict porn shops through zoning and licensing.