Last night, Columbia’s Zoning Hearing Board met to deliver its decision concerning the Club Good Times’ “challenge to the substantive validity of the Columbia Borough Zoning Ordinance asserting that the Zoning Ordinance provides no sites for Adult Uses, including nude dance and, in the alternative, requests a special exception to substitute a gentlemen’s club with nude dance for an existing non conforming use of a gentlemen’s club with partially clothed dancers and/or variances from requirements of the Zoning Ordinance relating to a change of a nonconforming use to an adult use, separation of an adult use from a dwelling, side and rear yard setbacks, and minimum lot size. The challenge / application relates to 425 Union Street, Columbia, PA, which is located in the HDR High Density Residential District.”

The Zoning Hearing Board Chair convened the hearing at 7:00 pm in front of an audience of approximately 50 people that included citizens, business owners, a dozen or so media representatives, applicants and their lawyers and more. Following the deliberation actions on the agenda (below) which included the decision, testimony on other agenda items, several breaks and executive sessions, the hearing was adjourned at 9:09 pm.

– agenda, page one –

– agenda, page two –

Last night’s first agenda item drew the attention of nearly all the local broadcast television news reporting teams; here are the their reports of the Board’s denial of Club Good Times’ application:

• FOX 43 – No nude dancers at Columbia’s Club Good Times

• CBS 21 – Gentlemen’s club denied opportunity to go full nude at zoning meeting

• ABC 27 and WGAL-TV were at the hearing; we could find no articles at their Websites.

Lancaster Newspapers, Inc. reporter,  Tom Knapp’s thorough report, Columbia rules dancers cannot be completely nude was first online. In his report, he states, “Still reading from the board’s decision, (Zoning Hearing Board attorney Josele) Cleary said the state Supreme Court ‘has repeatedly held that landowners have a constitutional right to continue a nonconforming use. … The board also cannot simply deny an application on the basis that citizens, editorial writers or others believe that the use is bad or detrimental.’

Here are the first three pages and the last page of the 26 page decision. [NOTE: Columbia news, views & reviews applied the highlighting.]