Court of Appeals Remands Adult Zoning Case

The Court of Appeals remanded a case involving New York City’s adult business zoning regulations for further hearings on whether so called 60/40 businesses should be regulated as adult businesses due to adverse secondary impacts on nearby properties and neighborhoods. The action by For the People Theatres of New York, Inc. challenged New York’s 2001 zoning amendments which attempted to control establishments which evaded the regulations on businesses that have a “substantial portion” of the business devoted to adult uses by maintaining so called 60/40 uses with 60 percent allegedly non-adult uses. The Court noted that the information submitted by the Plaintiff’s experts did not resolve the issue but merely shifted the burden to the City to prove secondary adverse impacts. The Court remanded the matter to provide the City with an opportunity to submit evidence of secondary impacts.