City Council Looking For Ways To Limit Peep Shows, Strippers

BELLEVUE

Bellevue may welcome high-tech industry with open arms, but the city has not so warmly embraced businesses catering to baser instincts.

The city earned a reputation for being tough on strip clubs when it insisted nude dancers keep at least four feet from patrons at the skin joints - and won before the state Supreme Court in 1997. The clubs shut down.

A year later, in part worried about the prospect of large emporiums selling sexual products in Bellevue, the City Council imposed a moratorium on new licenses for some adult-oriented businesses while the city reviewed its policies. The moratorium was extended twice.

That stay lapses next month, so tonight the City Council plans to consider amendments to the land-use code. The proposed changes to three ordinances would loosen some regulations and tighten others.

The changes, according to the city, would help curb the illegal sex and drug trade that it says can occur in "peep-show" businesses.

There are no live adult entertainment clubs in Bellevue and as few as four adult-entertainment bookstores and shops. The city does not have any permit requests for new strip clubs but nonetheless wants to have its rules in place before any businesses seek to locate in Bellevue, said Lori Riordan, assistant city attorney.

Among the proposed changes:

-- Adult-entertainment businesses would be restricted from locating within 660 feet of a public library or children's day-care center. The two are not specified in a list in the current ordinance.

-- Managers and assistant managers of businesses with private viewing booths, called panorams, would be required to obtain city licenses, and not just the owners of the businesses. The city hopes that will make the managers more eager to address problems. Only one Bellevue business, R & R Adult Toys downtown, has panorams.

-- Panorams would no longer be allowed to have doors, and all booths would have to be completely visible from a manager's station. Lighting would also have to clearly illuminate the spaces. Only one person could enter at a time.

At R & R Adult Toys, which has about 20 booths, assistant manager Keith Calandra said the booths have half-doors that expose a person's lower body, and surveillance cameras monitor the booths.

The staff doesn't permit shenanigans, he said. "We care about the business that we're a part of."

Informed that neither would be sufficient under the new codes, Calandra said R & R's owners would likely take issue with such an ordinance, citing privacy concerns.

But Riordan said that wouldn't get far. "It's not a privacy issue. Pierce County and Spokane have both done that," and had the ordinances upheld in court, Riordan said.

Although the City Council is not required to do so, Riordan said, it may hold a public hearing on the changes in the coming months before voting on them. ------------------------------- If you go . . .

The Bellevue City Council meeting starts at 6 tonight in the council conference room, 11511 Main St. Information: 425-452-6452.