YAKIMA, Wash. -- from www.yakima-herald.com - The Yakima City Council is expected to set Sept. 7 as the date to hear an appeal from a businessman who was denied an adult business license for a strip club.
The council is scheduled to confirm the date today for a closed-record public hearing on Jamie Muffett's appeal. A closed-record hearing means no new testimony is allowed, but the hearing will be held in public during a regular council meeting.
Last month, Muffett filed for an appeal to the council after a hearings examiner denied his application for the proposed Sinsations Gentlemen's Club in a vacant carpet store on South First Street.
Muffett wants the council to overturn a ruling by Hearings Examiner Gary Cuillier, who said the club would not be compatible with nearby retail businesses.
The City Council will run the hearing as a quasijudicial body and can uphold, modify or even overturn Cuillier's decision. Any further appeals would move into the court system.
The proposed club has drawn intense community opposition, and a hearing in May elicited five hours of mostly negative testimony.
State law protects strip clubs as free speech and forbids cities from writing zoning laws that, in effect, outlaw them.
The proposed site does not run afoul of buffer zones that prohibit adult businesses within 500 feet of schools, churches, parks and residential neighborhoods.
However, Cuillier agreed with city planners in ruling that the proposed site at 2308 S. First St. was not compatible with neighboring businesses.
