X-rated zone too close for comfort

A proposal in Berkley to allow adult entertainment in the northeast corner of town has roiled residents and officials across the border in Lakeville, who fear the X-rated businesses would bring undesirable elements too close to their homes.

"We respect their desire to put these kinds of businesses in a remote area, but this abuts Lakeville, and it abuts residentially zoned homes," Lakeville Selectman Charles E. Evirs Jr. said. "This might be remote to them, but it's close to our homes."

The Lakeville Board of Selectmen and Planning Board sent a joint letter to their Berkley counterparts protesting the zoning plan, which could go before Berkley Town Meeting this spring.

Steven Leary, chairman of the Berkley Planning Board, said the town is not trying to force adult businesses on Lakeville. "We were a little surprised at the reaction," he said. "The district would be just as close to homes in Berkley."

The Berkley Planning Board has not voted on the proposed adult zone or another being considered for Padelford Street near the center of town.

The proposed adult zone near the Lakeville border would allow sexually oriented businesses, such as nude dancing clubs or X-rated video stores, on County Street, about a half-mile from the Route 79 interchange on Route 140.

Several Lakeville residents attended a recent Berkley Planning Board meeting on the issue. Another discussion is planned for March 21, according to Leary.

Nancy Yeatts, chairwoman of the Lakeville Board of Selectmen, said she hopes Berkley officials will call off the talk of the adult zone. "I would find it very disturbing, and our citizens would find it disturbing," she said.

Many cities and towns in Massachusetts established adult entertainment districts in the mid-1990s, after a series of federal and state court rulings held that nude dancing and other adult entertainment were protected as free speech under the US Constitution and could not be banned outright.

The courts ruled, however, that adult entertainment could be regulated through zoning.

Berkley is one of the few towns in Eastern Massachusetts without any zoning districts , though for the past two years town officials have been debating an overall zoning plan for the community.

Businesses now can open anywhere they want in Berkley if they receive a special permit from the Board of Selectmen. Leary said the adult entertainment district is needed to protect the town from a potential legal challenge if an adult business tried to set up shop in town.

"When you bring up the words 'adult entertainment,' people think you are trying to attract it," said Leary. "What people don't understand is you can't stop these kinds of businesses; you can only regulate them."

Most of the local adult entertainment districts south of Boston are in remote areas that are designed to be unattractive to such businesses.

Evirs said an adult business might find the proposed Berkley zone on County Street an attractive location, given its proximity to heavily traveled Route 140.

Berkley is not the first town to consider putting its adult entertainment district on its border. In 1998, Raynham established a district near the Bridgewater line over the objections of officials and residents in that town. Milton considered establishing an adult district on the Dorchester line, but backed off after Boston officials and residents protested.

Locating unwanted land uses at the town border is a common practice, according to Stephen C. Smith, executive director of the Taunton-based Southeastern Regional Planning and Economic Development District.

"It's a classic zoning technique," Smith said. "Landfills are almost always on the town line. The Taunton and Raynham landfills are back-to-back."

Lakeville used a different approach to regulating adult entertainment, allowing it in industrial but not commercial areas.

There are no adult entertainment establishments now in either Berkley or Lakeville. Berkley, which has a population of about 6,000 compared with Lakeville's approximately 10,000, has very few businesses of any kind except for small strip malls and an RV dealership.

Most of the sexually oriented businesses operating in the south suburbs opened in communities that did not have formal zoning for adult establishments and, thus, could not be barred.

Nude dancing clubs now operate in Brockton, Stoughton, and New Bedford.

A planned strip club in Freetown was destroyed in a suspicious fire in 1999. A nude dancing club in Raynham closed shortly after it opened in 1995 after being cited by the town for liquor license and building code violations.

Robert Preer can be reached at preer@globe.com.