State court rejects sex club's appeal

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A state court on Friday rejected an appeal by owners of a shuttered Philadelphia restaurant/sex club who argued that they operated in accordance with local zoning ordinances and that no city regulation expressly prohibits such businesses.

The Commonwealth Court upheld earlier decisions that ruled against Club Kama Sutra, a restaurant/sex club that operated for almost five years behind blacked-out windows in a former Mexican restaurant on touristy South Street.

“Merely because Philadelphia’s zoning ordinances do not explicitly forbid operation of a sex club does not mean that an individual or corporation may obtain a permit for a different use and operate a sex club,” Judge Renee Cohn Jubelirer wrote for the unanimous panel.

Club Kama Sutra offered “buffet dining, DJ music and dancing and open cubicles with futon mattresses where patrons could engage in sexual activity, as well as watch other patrons so engaged, on the second floor,” the ruling said.