The Oxford Planning Commission voted into place in November an ordinance that places restrictions on adult entertainment businesses, such as locations in which they can operate and the prevention of the selling of alcohol.
One local television station reported the ordinance earlier this month, and Ole Miss students created a national trending topic on Twitter.
When the city recreated its codes in 2004, it mistakenly did not address any regulation of adult entertainment.
Oxford City Planner Tim Akers said he caught the oversight while reviewing city documents in the event that such a topic should arise.
“As a city planner, you anticipate questions like that,” Akers said.
According to Akers, no one has applied for a license to open a strip club, adult bookstore or any other form of adult entertainment outlet.
In November, Oxford Mayor Pat Patterson described the ordinance as a form of “housekeeping” and that it was not an implication that any such businesses proposed to join the community.
Despite the bureaucratic intentions of the planning commission, the hashtag #OxfordStripClubNames trended nationally on Twitter last week, as people took to the social media outlet to creatively express their name suggestions for a local strip club.
According to senior marketing major Jay Sheffer, the traffic on Twitter is not an indication that students believed a strip club would actually establish in Oxford.
He contended that students saw the hashtag on Twitter and decided to throw in their ideas for fun with no belief of a strip club coming to town.
“One news outlet tweeted (about the ordinance,) and a bunch of people started doing the hashtag thing. They were all pretty funny,” Sheffer said.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that no municipality can ban an adult entertainment business.
The Oxford ordinance lists a commercial area on West Jackson and an industrial area near the University-Oxford Airport off College Hill Road as the two possible locations for adult entertainment.
The ordinance also dictates that these businesses could not sell alcohol or erect signs advertising their activities.
“That ordinance is modeled after others in the state of Mississippi,” Akers said.
— Hawley Martin
thedmnews@gmail.com
