Agenda - Planning Commission - 12/06/2007

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~=--) ~ / -:-= -'. f ". I I I I !U I i November 15, 2007 I Volume 1 I No. 22 county's adult bookstore zoning'regulations..Thecounty never issued a certificate of occupancy to Starship. Starship filed a lawsuit against the county and others, claiming that its adult use zoning regulations were unconstitutional; both facially and as a p- plied to Starship. In its complaint, Starship requested both injunctive relief and monetary damages. The action was dismissed, and Starship appealed. .. DECISION: Dismissal affirmed. Starship contended throughout that it had intended to operate.a store with less than 25 percent sexually explicit materials. Based on this, the appeals court found that Starship lacked the requisite standing to pur- . sue claims concerning the county's adult bookstore zoning regulations because they never applied to Starship. Standing to sue in federal court contained three constitutional require- ments. First, the party instigating the action must have experienced an "in- jury in fact." Such injury had to be "concrete and particular~ed" as well as "actual or imminent." Second, the party's injury had to be "fairly trace- able to the challenged action of the defendant." Third, there had to be a likelihood that the injury would be "redressed by a favorable decision." Here, the court found that Starship had "certainly" suffered an ac- tual, concrete injury-the inability to open its store. However, Starship's injury was not "fairly traceable" to the county's adult use zoning regula-: tions because they applied only to adult bookstores whose merchandise was at least 25 percent sexually explicit. Since Starship had consistendy maintained that its store's percentage of adult merchandise was always less than 25 percent -and because the court, in reviewing a dismissal, had to accept the facts of the case in the light most favorable to the non-moving party-Starship's inability to open its store was caused not by the county's adult bookstore regulations, but by the determi- nation that Starship's inventory was one-quarter. or more sexuallye;xplicit. Because Starship could not satisfy the traceability requirement, the court did not need to examine the other requirements for standing. And, because Starship lacked standing to bring its constitutional challenge to the county's adult bookstore provisions, the court noted that it could . not "render an improper advisory opinion on the constitutionality of Fulton County's zoning regulations." The dismissal was affirmed. Rezoning-City.approves rezoning to allow boat club to continue operating. Neighbor claims 'private' dub incompatible with comprehensiv~ plan Citation: Saadeh v. City of Jacksonville, 2007 WL 3085005 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1st Dist. 2007) FLORIDA (10/24/07)-The Stanton Rowing Foundation purchased two acres of land with the financial backing of the city of Jacksonville. 3. 51