Salem, Virginia- Ordinances that restrict where adult businesses can set up shop accomplish what sex-toy catalogs have offered for years: They deliver the goods wrapped in plain brown paper.

Salem officials understand they can’t ban from the city limits businesses that sell sex toys or parade partially nude dancers. That would be unconstitutional. Yet they can regulate where such businesses can set up shop. And they can, to a certain extent, keep them from looking seedy or from promoting X-rated offerings to G-rated passers-by.

Salem’s planning commission is reviewing a proposed ordinance that sets out to do just that. There are no strip clubs or adult book stores in Salem now, but that doesn’t mean that there never will be an interest.

Salem officials are wise to plan for the inevitable rather than risk an emotionally charged, petition-driven debate that surely would greet the first such applicant.

By revising the city’s ordinances, Salem officials can rely on logic and legal advice, as their plan appears to do.

They propose to limit adult establishments to commercial districts, which would keep them out of neighborhoods. To further separate the adults-only businesses from the business of raising children, Salem officials plan to create at least a 300-foot buffer zone around child-care centers, schools and churches. They also propose to limit signs and to call for increased lighting and video surveillance.

Even with all of the proposed restrictions, Salem officials figure nearly half of the acreage along its commercial district of East and West Main Street and Apperson Drive would support adult businesses.

These restrictions attempt to forestall complaints from people in the community who would rather not have these types of businesses, while also offering acceptable locations for people in the community who wish to operate or frequent them.