"City leaders are currently rewriting Charlottesville's zoning codes. When the new laws are finally approved sometime next year, they will allow builders to create a more 'urban' environment.

Some residents have already complained that these metropolitan changes, such as taller buildings, will destroy folksy neighborhoods. And that's before they even consider the possible shock from an audacious entrepreneur who opens a strip joint in one of Charlottesville's leafy hamlets.

Anticipating the stink that triple-X shops could raise, the City's Department of Neighborhood Planning and Development has initiated zoning codes specifically for 'adult uses.'

In general, an 'adult use' proprieter is any bookstore, bar, massage parlor or movie theater devoted to 'specified anatomical areas.' Sex shops must stay 1,000 feet from almost any structure in town, as well as 1,000 feet from each other, to prevent a 'red-light district' from popping up inside the City limits. Below is a partial transcript of Charlottesville's first sex ordinances.

Specified anatomical areas:

(1) Less than completely and opaquely covered human genitals, pubic region, buttocks or female breast below a point immediately above the top of the areola, or (2) Human male genitals in a discernibly turgid state, even if completely and opaquely covered.

Specified sexual activities:

(1) The fondling, intentional touching of human genitals, pubic region, buttocks, anus or female breast, whether covered or uncovered; or (2) Sex acts, normal or perverted, actual or simulated, including masturbation, intercourse, oral copulation or sodomy; or (3) Human genitals in a state of sexual stimulation, arousal or tumescence; or (4) Execratory functions as part of or in connection with any of the activities set forth in (1) through (3) above.

Location of adult uses:

(a) No adult use may be established within one thousand (1,000) feet of a residentially zoned district or property used as a residence regardless of zoning, or a school, educational institution, religious institution, public park, playground, playfeld or day care center.

(b) No adult use may be established within one thousand (1,000) feet of any other such adult use in any zoning district. (c) The 'establishment' of an adult use as referred to herein shall include the opening of such business as a new business, the relocation of such business, the increase in floor area by 25 percent of such business, or the conversion, in whole or part, of an existing business to any adult use.

Source: Charlottesville Department of Neighborhood Planning and Development." (John Borgmeyer, C-Ville Weekly, December 3, 2002)