VICTOR, NY — Members of the Victor, NY Planning Board of Appeals decided this week that there is no reason to change the town’s adult entertainment ordinance in order to ensure that the ordinance covers home-based businesses such as one run by a couple in Farmington — a home-studio producing nude images and other softcore porn content for online distribution.According to Planning Board Chairman Paul Lytle, the law doesn’t need changing, because it already covers such a business.
“I do not think we need to make any changes with our adult code,” Lytle told his fellow board members, according to MPNNow.com, the website for Messenger Post Newspapers.
Lytle asked the board to review Victor’s adult entertainment codes earlier this month, following the revelation that a couple in Farmington were running a photo studio and modeling business out of their home, sending the images they shot to business partners in other locations to be uploaded onto adult websites.
According to MPNNow.com, “at least one” of the models was identified as a Victor high school student and several other models have “local ties.”
Despite the fact that Sheriff’s deputies determined that all of the models were at least 18 years of age and nothing else was illegal about the business, the couple was cited for violating local adult entertainment and home-business zoning regulations.
At this week’s meeting, Lytle said that although Victor’s nine-year-old adult entertainment code was “mainly intended to focus on physical establishments where there were dancers or performers,” the ordinance does apply to the Farmington couple’s business due to the way the statute defines “adult uses” and other terms.
Under Victor’s adult entertainment code, “adult uses” is defined as “Generally, any person, establishment or business involved in the viewing or dissemination of material distinguished or characterized by an emphasis on matter depicting, describing or related to sexual activity or specified anatomical areas, including but not limited to any establishment that allows or promotes dancers, performers or employees, whether male or female, to display specified anatomical areas.”
“I feel that the operation identified in Farmington would indeed be identified as an adult use in Victor,” Lytle said this week, according to MPNNow.com.
Under Victor’s adult entertainment code, no “person, firm, association, partnership, corporation or other entity shall operate or cause to be operated an adult entertainment use unless a valid license has been issued for such use.”
The decision won’t be the final word concerning possible adjustments to Victor’s adult entertainment code, but any changes to the code will likely not happen soon. According to MPNNow.com, the Planning Board will forward its recommendation not to immediately amend the code to Supervisor Leslie Bamann, who had requested the board’s input, and recommend that the Town Board revisit the issue when it updates the town’s 10-year-old “Comprehensive Plan” in the months to come.
