Minutes - Council - 10/09/1990 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Douglas Fountain - 15255 Garnet Street N.W. - noted that Ramsey's current firearm ordinance contains a 1500' distance requirement from any residential structure within the City. An adult bookstore located 750' from a church or child care center may be a lot more dangerous than a 12 gauge shotgun at 1500 feet. Mr. Fountain inquired by what precedent does Ramsey have to give adult uses 750'. Mr. David Licht replied that Supreme Court, in its decisions, has been very specific that cities have to provide the opportunity in their community for adult activities. If they don't, the courts will declare a city's regulations invalid and that returns the regulations back to what the City had prior to the moratorium and adult uses can occur anyplace. Each city has to be analyzed on a case by case basis and determine whether the requirement is acceptable. In its research, the planning consultants tried application of several distance requirements. Those applications were compared to the basic guidelines set in the Renton, Washington case which indicated that 5% of a community being available for adult uses is reasonable. Based upon that analysis, the consultants performed some calculations on each of the proposed distance requirements and the one that most closely met the guidelines set in Renton, Washington was 750'. It is realized that 750' is not preferred by many people, but it has to be recognized that if you don't accept a standard that will be accepted by the courts, you will be left with no standards at all. Mr. Douglas Fountain inquired if 5% has been established as the norm and could the area of opportunity for adult uses be limited to one or two percent. Mr. Hartley stated that when you apply the 750' distance requirement in Ramsey, it calculates out to 2% of the entire community being available for adult uses. Based on a comparison of Ramsey to Renton, Washington, it was felt that Ramsey would have the freedom to deviate from that 5%. Mr. Licht again stated that calculating out at 750' distance requirements, 2.2% of the entire City would be available for adult uses which interprets to 8.5% of the urban area or 28.6% of the MUSA area. Joe Sentyrz ~ 6740 Highway gl0 N.W. - stated that the ordinance amendment being reviewed this evening is proposed and inquired if the best the City can hope for to eliminate the existing bookstore is two years. Mr. Goodrich replied that the amortization period is subject to a case by case analysis. In researching other cases, the most expedient elimination took ninety days and the time period increases from there. Amortization is mostly an accounting decision based on the amount of investment the property owner has and determining whether forcing early closure will be a taking. The U.S. Supreme Court has permitted a closure in as little as 90 days. In a Minnesota case, the amortization period was three years. Mr. Goodrich noted that staff has done some discovery and determined the amount of investment the present operator has and that will be used in determining the amortization period. If an amortization period is too short, the courts can call Ramsey's entire ordinance as unconstitutional. If the City errs, it should err on being conservative so the process does not have to be started all over again. Joe Sentyrz noted that the City already has one year of this situation and some courts recognize that toward amortization period. Jim Gilbertson inquired as to how many law suits the City now has pending with the bookstore. Mr. Gilbertson stated that he talked to the owner of the bookstore and he indicated he has one law suit against the City and one law suit against his bank. Mr. Goodrich stated that, of public record, there is a law suit of Holmberg v. City of Ramsey, which relates to the allegation that Ramsey has violated his freedom of speech. Another law suit is Public Hearing/October 9, 1990 Page 9 of 14