A.
Purpose.
(1)
Pursuant to the authority granted in the Second Class Township Code to prohibit nuisances, to promote the health, cleanliness, comfort and safety of the citizens of Forks Township, and to regulate the time of opening and closing, and the conduct of places of public entertainment, amusement and recreation, the Township of Forks enacts this article to minimize and control the adverse effects of adult entertainment businesses and thereby protect the health, safety and welfare of its citizens; protect the citizens from increased crime; preserve the quality of life; preserve the property values and character of surrounding neighborhoods; and deter the spread of blight.
(2)
The Board of Supervisors has determined that locational criteria alone does not adequately protect the health, safety and general welfare of the people of the Township, and that licensing is a legitimate and reasonable means of accountability to ensure that operators of adult entertainment businesses comply with reasonable regulations and to ensure that operators do not knowingly allow their establishments to be used as places of illegal sexual activity or solicitation.
(3)
The Board of Supervisors does not intend this article to suppress any speech activities protected by the First Amendment, but to enact a content-neutral ordinance which addresses the secondary effects of adult entertainment businesses.
B.
Findings. The Board of Supervisors finds:
(1)
Specific findings.
(a)
Sexually oriented businesses lend themselves to ancillary unlawful and unhealthy activities that may go uncontrolled by the operators of the establishments. Further, there is presently no mechanism to make the owners of these establishments responsible for the activities that occur on their premises.
(b)
Certain employees of sexually oriented businesses defined in this article as adult theaters and cabarets engage in a higher incidence of certain types of sexually oriented behavior at these businesses than employees of other establishments.
(c)
Sexual acts, including masturbation and oral and anal sex occur at sexually oriented businesses, especially those which provide private or semiprivate booths or cubicles for viewing films, videos or live sex shows, as defined under this article as adult bookstores, adult novelty shops, adult video stores, adult motion-picture theaters or adult arcades.
(d)
Offering and providing such space encourages such activities, which create unhealthy conditions.
(e)
Persons frequent certain adult theaters, adult arcades and other sexually oriented businesses for the purpose of engaging in sex within the premises of such sexually oriented businesses.
(f)
At least 50 communicable diseases may be spread by activities occurring in sexually oriented businesses, including but not limited to syphilis, gonorrhea, human immunodeficiency virus infection (AIDS), genital herpes, hepatitis B, non-B amebiasis, salmonella infections and shigella infections.
(g)
Since 1981 and to the present, there have been an increasing cumulative number of reported cases of AIDS caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in the United States: 600 in 1982, 2,200 in 1983, 4,600 in 1984, 8,555 in 1985 and 253,448 through December 31, 1992.
(h)
As of May 1, 1995, there have been 13,559 reported cases of AIDS in the State of Pennsylvania.
(i)
Since 1981 and to the present, there have been an increasing cumulative number of persons testing positive for the HIV antibody test in Northampton County, Pennsylvania.
(j)
The number of cases of early (less than one year) syphilis in the United States reported annually has risen, with 33,613 cases reported in 1982 and 45,200 through November of 1990.
(k)
The number of cases of gonorrhea in the United States reported annually remains at a high level, with over one-half million cases being reported in 1990.
(l)
The surgeon general of the United States in his report of October 22, 1986, advised the American public that AIDS and HIV infection may be transmitted through sexual contact, intravenous drug abuse, exposure to infected blood and blood components and from an infected mother to her newborn.
(m)
According to the best scientific evidence, AIDS and HIV infection, as well as syphilis and gonorrhea, are principally transmitted by sexual acts.
(n)
Sanitary conditions in some sexually oriented businesses are unhealthy, in part, because the activities conducted there are unhealthy, and, in part, because of the unregulated nature of the activities and the failure of the owners and the operators of the facilities to self-regulate those activities and maintain those facilities.
(o)
Numerous studies and reports have determined that semen is found in the areas of sexually oriented businesses where persons view adult oriented films.
(2)
The findings noted in the subsection above raise substantial governmental concerns.
(3)
Adult entertainment businesses have operational characteristics which should be reasonably regulated in order to protect those substantial governmental concerns.
(4)
A reasonable licensing procedure is an appropriate mechanism to place the burden of that reasonable regulation on the owners and the operators of the adult entertainment businesses. Further, such a licensing procedure will place a heretofore nonexistent incentive on the operators to see that the adult entertainment business is run in a manner consistent with the health, safety and welfare of its patrons and employees, as well as the citizens of the Township. It is appropriate to require reasonable assurances that the licensee is the actual operator of the adult entertainment business, fully in possession and control of the premises and activities occurring therein.
(5)
Removal of doors on adult booths and requiring sufficient lighting on premises with adult booths advances a substantial governmental interest in curbing the illegal and unsanitary sexual activity occurring in adult theaters.
(6)
Requiring licensees of adult entertainment businesses to keep information regarding current employees and certain past employees will help reduce the incidence of certain types of criminal behavior by facilitating the identification of potential witnesses or suspects and by preventing minors from working in such establishments.
(7)
The disclosure of certain information by those persons ultimately responsible for the day-to-day operation and maintenance of the adult entertainment business, where such information is substantially related to the significant governmental interest in the operation of such uses, will aid in preventing the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.
(8)
It is desirable in the prevention of the spread of communicable diseases to obtain a limited amount of information regarding certain employees who may engage in the conduct which this article is designed to prevent or who are likely to be witnesses to such activity.
(9)
The fact that an applicant for an adult use license has been convicted of a sexually related crime leads to the rational assumption that the applicant is likely to engage in that conduct in contravention of this article.
(10)
The barring of such individuals from the management of adult uses for a period of years serves as a deterrent to and prevents conduct which leads to the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases.
(11)
The general welfare, health and safety of the citizens of the Township will be promoted by the enactment of this article.