Committee advances zoning changes to allow adult venues, continues ordinance to April 25

The Land Use and Transportation Committee on April 18 considered an ordinance to add a new "adult venue" use to the San Francisco Planning Code and to change where those businesses may operate, including in neighborhoods historically associated with the city’s LGBTQ community. Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, the item’s sponsor, said the changes respond to conflicts between public-health rules for adult venues and existing zoning that treated them as broadly prohibited "adult businesses."

Mandelman said the proposal would align zoning with the Department of Public Health’s 2021 minimum standards for adult venues — rules that require age verification, prohibit drugs and alcohol on the premises, and require the provision of condoms and sexual-health education. "This is an ordinance to update the city zoning controls for adult venues including those institutions commonly known as gay bathhouses," Mandelman said. He and…