Stripping down the city’s bylaw on adult entertainment

MedicineHatNews.com
Feb. 5, 2015
By Collin Gallant

The issue of strip clubs is one sleeping dog that everyone at City Hall appears nervously content to let lay.

So long is its slumber that most everyone seems to think there’s no chance of waking it.

Recent events, however, show otherwise.

On Monday night City Council approved a lengthy new business license fee schedule that includes new category and accompanying $1,500 charge for “Adult Establishment.”

The popular belief is that it is not possible to open a strip club in Medicine Hat.

In reality, it is possible and it isn’t.

It’s been 12 years since a strip bar operated locally, and officials are quick to say they’ve had no inquiries under a regulations that strictly regulate such enterprises.

They say the inclusion has to do with how local fees are calculated in comparison to average of other mid-sized Alberta cities.

Lethbridge, Airdrie, St. Albert and others all have such a fee, and, local officials told reporters, they are simply being consistent.

It’s likely more involved than that, if you consider what would happen if the city didn’t have the ability to issue a such a license.

It could seem that there was never any intention of issuing a one - a notion that could form the foundation of a very interesting lawsuit.

This is the trouble with not saying what you mean or meaning what you say.

That trouble is compounded, multiplied and subject to legal ramifications when it involves legislation.

Medicine Hat’s Landuse Bylaw states adult establishments cannot exist within 250 metres (about one-and-one-half long city blocks) of any residence, church, recreation and community centre, daycare or school.

They are a discretionary use - meaning subject to Municipal Planning Commission approval - only in General Industrial zones.

Such land classification only exists in Brier Park and the Southwest Light Industrial Area, as well as along Highway No. 3 south of the Airport.

It seems to be a generally agreed fact these regulations, based on a fiery debate in 2003, was written with such stringent requirements as to disqualify most of the developed land in the city limits.

The unspoken message is clear: While strip clubs are technically allowed in Medicine Hat, in practice, they are not.

Without banning them outright, the legislation effectively bars them from setting up.

It is a divisive issue.

Many Hatters are happy that there are such bars within city limits, and couldn’t care how that’s accomplished.

Many others see legislating morality as a dangerous path and the measure as backwards.

Municipalities have the ability and duty to set development standards and approve businesses.

To that effect, Cardston residents recently reaffirmed prohibition in that town by plebiscite.

Increasingly, however, the business community and residents at large demand clarity and transparency from their local government.

The 2012-2013 rewriting of the Landuse Bylaw - yes, it spanned two years - was couched in terms of cutting red tape, streamlining regulation, allowing entrepreneurs a freer hand and using easily understood language rather than legalese.

While much of the bylaw accomplishes that laudable goal, the section on strip clubs still reeks of a small-town, wink-wink, nudge-nudge, read-between-the-lines.

City Council and City Hall may have to address that whether they want to or not.