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Commission OKs zoning waiver for store
YOUNGSTOWN
In the city’s zoning code, strip clubs, adult bookstores, bars, tattoo parlors, payday-lending operations, pool halls and secondhand stores are all the same.
They all are considered “regulated use” businesses and to open any of them in Youngstown within 500 feet of another business on that list, you need approval from the city’s planning commission and city council.
George Smith received approval Tuesday from the planning commission to open a secondhand store, to be called Junk or Treasure, at 3215 South Ave.
Smith needed approval because his store, at the former Angelo Pizza building, is within 500 feet of the Coconut Grove bar.
Smith’s approval comes one day shy of exactly one year since a secondhand store at 1707 Mahoning Ave. received a waiver.
Then-Councilwoman Carol Rimedio-Righetti, now a Mahoning County commissioner, said at the time that the law is “stupid,” and secondhand stores “shouldn’t be in the same category as a bar or a strip club.”
Some members of council a year ago said they’d look at changing the law, but it never happened.
Councilman John R. Swierz, D-7th, who will have Smith’s store in his ward, supports the project. But he said Tuesday that he’s not ready to remove secondhand stores from the list of regulated-use businesses.
Also Tuesday, the commission approved a proposal from John Christopher to open up Internet Palace, an online gaming cafe, at 2904 McCartney Road, Room 16.
It’s the first Internet gaming business to receive a waiver from the planning commission since the city updated its laws on those operations in April.
Christopher, who owns Internet gaming businesses in Youngstown, Salem and Austintown, plans to open in the Lincoln Knolls Plaza with 25 computer terminals.
The Internet caf s are regulated-use businesses, and this location is within 500 feet of another regulated use: a grocery store with carryout liquor sales.
The businesses allow customers to purchase time online to play sweepstakes games and win prizes or money. The Ohio Legislature is considering laws to require skill-based machines to be certified by the state with a limit of five machines per location.