TRENTON, N.J. – I’ve always felt that whether 1000 feet is a significant distance depends largely on the context of the measurement.

For example, if you’re a football team facing fourth down and 333.33 yards to go… well, then the rules and geography of football have changed quite a bit since the last time I watched a game – and 1000 feet probably seems impossibly far, from your perspective.

If you’re piloting an airplane travelling 475 miles per hour, however, you’re going to cover that 1000 feet in roughly 1.43 seconds. So, if there’s an object 1000 feet away directly in your flight path, you’re going to want to change that flight path with some real urgency, I’d say.

But let’s say you’re a city in New Jersey that’s trying to protect property values, deter crime and prevent churchgoers from being unwillingly exposed to the horrifying specter of adult entertainment business signage – or, even worse, any adult entertainment patrons who might shuffle past – is it truly sufficient to make adult businesses stay a mere 1000 feet away?

Some folks in the New Jersey legislature evidently don’t think 1000 feet is great enough a buffer between church and porn shops (or between schools and porn shops, or bus stops and porn shops, or public parks and porn shops, or…. well, you get the picture), because that body is now debating SB 963, AKA the “Defense of Community Standards Act” (“DCSA”).

According to the bill’s sponsors, there is “convincing documented evidence that sexually oriented businesses, because of their very nature, have a deleterious effect on both the existing businesses around them and the surrounding residential areas adjacent to them” because such businesses “contribute to increased crime, particularly in the overnight hours, and the downgrading of property value.”

Let’s ignore for the moment the fact there’s a great deal of debate about how convincing this “documented evidence” of the “deleterious effect” on surrounding communities truly is and assume these Jersey legislators are right about the negative impacts of adult businesses. In that case, what’s a decent, moral, God-fearing community (one that’s also likely breathing in some of the country’s worst air) to do about these darn smut shops driving down their property values and driving up their crime rates?

Why, make them stay 1500 feet further away, of course!

Under the DCSA, “no person shall operate a sexually oriented business within 2,500 feet of any existing sexually oriented business, or any church, synagogue, temple or other place of public worship, or any elementary or secondary school or any school bus stop, or any municipal or county playground or place of public resort and recreation, or any hospital or any child care center, or within 2,500 feet of any area zoned for residential use.”

Awesome idea, right? Porn-driven blight and crime problems solved!

Unfortunately for residents of the Garden State whose churches, houses, schools, hospitals or playgrounds already have smut shops located within 2500 feet of them, this is where we get to the disappointing part of the DCSA.

“This subsection shall not apply to a sexually oriented business already lawfully operating on the effective date of this act where another sexually oriented business, an elementary or secondary school or school bus stop, or any municipal or county playground or place of public resort and recreation,” the bill states, “or any hospital or any child care center, is subsequently established within 2,500 feet, or a residential district or residential lot is subsequently established within 2,500 feet.”

Everywhere you see the number 2500 above, current New Jersey law reads “1,000” – so in truth, any porn shops currently located 1000+ feet from your house, church, etc., in New Jersey can stay right where they are and all you’ll be able do about it (absent any extralegal notions you might come up with, of course) will be to write angry letters.

But hey – the good news is, any NEW porn shops that might open in the area will have to go about making your property values plummet and your crime rates skyrocket from 1500 feet further away than they do now. Of course, new porn shops probably don’t open very often in your area to begin with, in part because of regulations like those the DCSA seeks to amend, which deny them prime locations. You might also have heard of this little thing called “the Internet”, from which your neighbor – and quite possibly your priest, doctor, child’s teacher and local bus driver – is downloading porn at this very moment, a fact that has also impacted brick and mortar adult shops.

Fear not though, Garden State NIMBY‘s: At least you can sleep comfortably knowing the only way anyone is going to sell physical porn products in your immediate vicinity is by breaking the law. And we all know what happens to people who break the law in New Jersey: They get profiled by CNN.

Chess pawns image by Markus Spiske of Pexels