Well, I hate to admit again, haven’t been very good at doing the blog thing on a timely basis, but now that my favorite two seasons that clash together…high school football and “political”…are behind me, maybe I can update this a little bit more that I have in the past, and I apologize to you that followed the first few postings only to see me go into an extended hiatus with this..
This week’s meeting of the Mason City City Council wasn’t a record-breaker on the clock…3 hours and 38 minutes, including the public comment session after the business portion of the meeting (click here to listen/download the entire meeting and public comment) …but it certainly saw one of the larger crowds in recent memory to a council meeting. NIACC buildings officials had to be called in to expand the room at the Muse-Norris Conference Center. The council has been using two-thirds of the total space for meetings, but an overflow crowd of about 125 people meant the other third had to be opened up. Most were there to listen to the council deliberate the issue of adult-use businesses, mainly with the concept brought forth during the November 2nd meeting by Max Weaver to change the zoning in the downtown area to allow so-called “gentlemen’s clubs”. The council shot down the idea of allowing city staff to further look into the issue…Weaver in the end voted against that proposal…but even after this vote, I find a number of people inside and outside the community are thinking that adult-use businesses won’t be allowed anywhere in the community, especially after we’ve reported that fact in a story late last week.
As we reported on November 11th and 12th, under the current zoning laws, there are several areas of the city that already could allow strip joints. Mayor Eric Bookmeyer last week not only stated that he would veto any movement forward with looking into rezoning downtown to allow adult uses, but also pointed out places in the community where such places could be put, either “by right” under the current zoning, or by having a conditional use permit awarded in some certain spots.
Bookmeyer presented us a map that shows where those spots could go, and some spots may even surprise you on where those businesses can go. To allow you to see the map and zoom in on specific areas, click on this link to open up a PDF file of the map.
Even if downtown was rezoned to allow adult uses, is it really likely that in today’s climate that someone is going to set up shop downtown? Probably not. City Planner Tricia Sandahl reminds us, in her words from a memo to city staff, that “owners of adult businesses generally do not like downtown locations because they do not offer any anonymity to their customers.” Take the area inside the US Highway 65 loop. Is there really any spot inside that area where you would set up shop if you were going to bring in a strip club?
It will be interesting to see, even after this flare-up of local politics and Mason City getting itself into the bad national spotlight again for the second time in six months, if anybody will take the chance of establishing an adult business in one of those spots where according to zoning laws they can.
