HELENA, Mont. — Adam & Eve has received a conditional use authorization to open an adult boutique in Helena, Montana; however, the local zoning commission stipulated that the business could not have a pole-mounted sign like its neighboring stores due to “moral concerns.”
According to a report published Tuesday by the Helena Independent Record, City Planner Michael McConnell told the city commissioners Monday that "businesses within the commercial light-manufacturing district [that] the sex shop will move into are typically permitted up to a 300-square-foot pole-mounted sign, ostensibly a billboard, but the Helena Zoning Commission denied the business any pole-mounted signage and limited the overall amount of signage the business can put up based on moral concerns.”
Adam & Eve agreed to the stipulations.
City Commissioner Andres Haladay, the newspaper noted, called out the zoning commission’s "moral picking and choosing," especially in contrast to several casinos within the city “that are permitted to have large, lit signage.”
"Terrible idea on this one," Haladay told the other city officials. "We're doing it. They're agreeing to it. But this is a specific content restriction on the store because of the word 'sex,' and we're all like getting nervous and twittery."
City Attorney Thomas Jodoin claimed that the peculiar condition was “consistent with the city's general goal that we're trying to limit the amount of pole signage out there."
McConnell said “surrounding residents were sent mailers informing them of the application and forthcoming meetings,” and “five public comments were received, mostly objecting for moral reasons,” the Independent Record Reported.
According to the paper, there are no sexually oriented businesses within the city's borders and no applications or approvals for such businesses have been made since at least 1987.
Back in 2018, some Missoula, Montana residents objected to a billboard by Adam & Eve that featured a stylized smiling cartoon face with the text "Approachable as the girl next door."
Main Image: An Adam & Eve billboard that offended Missoula, Montana residents in 2018.
