BERKLEY, MA – Berkley Planning Board Chairman Steven Leary thought he had the perfect place in mind for a commercial zone that would be open for use by a properly licensed adult entertainment businesses – a stretch on the outskirts of Berkley’s east side, along State Route 140, which is also one of a small number of areas in Berkley that has already seen some commercial development.As Berkley currently is zoned for residential use only and has no designated commercial zones at all, a new commercial zone must first be created and voted upon by residents at an annual town meeting in June. At the same time, residents will be able to vote on whether to establish the zone at Route 140 and Myricks Street as a potential location for adult businesses.
Although he says he would prefer the town to not have adult businesses at all, Leary is aware that courts across the country have ruled that simply not allowing adult businesses is not an option. Given that legal reality, Leary figured that the area along Route 140 was as reasonable spot for prospective adult businesses as Berkley has to offer.
“We can’t keep it [the adult business] from coming into Berkley, and if it does, we want to make sure it fits in,” Leary said, according to the Southern Massachusetts-based Taunton Gazette.
A bit of a wrench appears to have been thrown into Leary’s plan, however; a wrench that comes in the form of nearby Lakeville, MA – another small town that just happens to have residential areas adjacent to the same stretch of Route 140 where Leary wants to establish Berkley’s new commercial zone.
The Lakeville Board of Selectmen now plans to voice its opposition to Berkley’s plan in a letter to the Berkley Board of Selectmen, Lakeville Selectman Chuck Evirs told The Standard-Times, another Southern MA-based newspaper.
“The area they’re talking about, it abuts residential homes in Lakeville,” Evirs said. “It’s a controversial area.”
Evirs added that his board is sending the letter to its equivalent organization in Berkley to “help them not consider it.”
Leary, who also serves on the Berkley Zoning Committee countered that if anyone in Lakeville “thinks this [zone] is to promote [adult entertainment], that’s not it at all.”
“It’s to regulate it [adult entertainment],” Leary said, “definitely not to promote it.”
As Leary sees it, his zoning proposal is a simple matter of proactive preparation for the possibly inevitable
“We decided we should at least approach adult entertainment so we can control it, because if an area is zoned commercial, then adult entertainment can go wherever they want in that zone by special permit,” said Leary, according to the Standard-Times.
“We were proposing a special bylaw so there would only be certain areas within that commercial zone that could be for adult entertainment,” Leary said noting that the bylaw would “also have other restrictions, such as what can be on their signs. For instance, they can’t say ‘XXX.’”
Leary added that the zoning committee had discussed the proposal with the Berkley Selectmen and it was decided that “it should go on the warrant for Town Meeting in June.”
Leary told the Standard-Times that the Berkley Planning Board had not yet received the letter from the Lakeville Board of Selectmen.
Another nearby town, Dighton, MA, brought a similar initiative to establish a commercial zone before that town’s voters three years ago, according to the Gazette. Dighton’s residents voted down the proposal, despite the proposed zone being an industrial area town with few nearby residents.
Dighton Planning Board Chairman Kenneth Araujo told the Gazette that the point of the proposal there was “not that we wanted it [adult entertainment], but that if someone wanted to do it, this [zone] is where it would have to go.”
No adult businesses have tried to set up shop in Dighton since the proposal was voted down, but Araujo noted that if and when such a business does seek to open its doors in Dighton, it can now do so in any of the town’s commercial areas – precisely because the proposed ordinance that would have limited their choices failed.
“They have to stay a certain distance away from a school or church,” but adult businesses are otherwise free to set up shop wherever they like in Dighton, Araujo said.
“Through the First Amendment, that’s their right,” Araujo observed.
