RTP-area local music and culture

["Caleb Southern" <southernc AT mindspring.com>]

Please send a brief email to Durham County Commissioner Ellen Reckhow,
asking her to stop attempts to further regulate entertainment businesses in
downtown Durham.

(See article below.)

Thanks!
Caleb


Send email to:

commissioners AT co.durham.nc.us; mruffin AT co.durham.nc.us;
council AT ci.durham.nc.us; Patrick.Baker AT durhamnc.gov;
southernc AT mindspring.com


Sample message:

Commissioner Reckhow:

Please do not support additional zoning regulations for downtown
entertainment businesses. Downtown Durham is already struggling with a lack
of retail and vacant storefronts. We do not need additional bureaucratic
hurdles that would create more barriers to economic development in our city
center.

I cannot imagine a vibrant downtown that does not have a healthy presence of
entertainment and night life.



***

Rules may tighten for adult businesses

By Ray Gronberg : The Herald-Sun
gronberg AT heraldsun.com
Dec 7, 2005 : 12:09 am ET

DURHAM -- City and county officials committed themselves Tuesday to placing
tougher restrictions on adult establishments in Durham's new land-use law.

But for now they won't consider adding more rules for nightclubs to the
effort.

The decision to study the rules for adult establishments emerged from a
meeting of the Joint City/County Planning Committee, a group that includes
elected officials from the city and county governments.

A fresh look at the rules has been in the cards ever since plans surfaced
for a new strip club on a site off U.S. 70 Business in East Durham.

Activists in that part of the city have begun campaigning against the
project. Several elected officials have responded by saying they'd favor
tightening the rules Durham already has on the books.

The city and county now only allow adult establishments -- a category of
business that also includes adult bookstores and theaters -- on land zoned
for heavy industrial development, and then only if they're not within 1,000
feet of residential zones, churches, day cares, schools, parks and
libraries.

None of the members of the joint planning committee disagreed Tuesday with
the idea of revisiting those rules. Instead, they focused on whether to use
the attempt as a springboard to a wider discussion about nightclubs.

The chief advocate for doing so was County Commissioner Chairwoman Ellen
Reckhow, who said that as developers build more housing downtown, conflicts
between residents and nightclubs are inevitable.

The coupling of the two issues is logical because nightclubs have some of
the same problems with noise and crime that adult establishments do, Reckhow
said.

And with 12 active residential projects in downtown, "we may get more of
this negative interaction unless we get better review of nightclubs," she
said.

Several other officials, however, weren't eager to go along.

City/County Planning Director Frank Duke said the two types of business
present "totally different issues" to regulators, and are each complex in
their own right.

Even something as seemingly uncomplicated as requiring separation between
homes and clubs can be difficult in a city's downtown, he said.

For example, "Joe & Jo's [is] a nightclub, and if you applied the standard
on separation from residential they'd be illegal," Duke said, naming a
popular establishment on West Main Street.

Assistant City Manager Ted Voorhees said officials are handling problems
with clubs by using Durham's noise ordinance. That enables them to avoid
having to rule on issues such as how much brick or concrete has to buffer a
club or what kind of sound systems a club can use.

He added that local officials can look to cities such as Wilmington,
Charlotte and Asheville for other examples of how to handle the problem.

County Commissioner Lewis Cheek joined Duke in warning against adding
nightclubs to the mix.

"If we want to ask Frank to spend time examining [downtown nightclubs], it
seems to me it's going to involve a huge amount of time," Cheek said. "It's
a very complicated issue because you're trying to balance several things.
Yes, you have residents, but you also want to draw people downtown. People
who live downtown should have a certain expectation that there are going to
be live entertainment venues downtown."