The first line: the 1976 ordinance and Dandy Co.

1976 — 1980

The ordinance: On December 14, 1976, South Bend enacted Ordinance No. 6090-76, effective January 1, 1977 — one of the early American attempts to disperse adult businesses by zoning. It forbade three "controlled uses" to operate within 1,000 feet of each other, and any one of them to open within 500 feet of a residential area; adult bookstores stood on a list of nine controlled uses. The ordinance did not protect businesses that were merely planned: it protected lawful uses actually existing on its effective date, unless those uses had been abandoned.

The case: The premises at 1524 South Miami Street had held an adult bookstore from March 1972 until the last tenant's lease expired in November 1974, and then stood empty for two years. A new operator leased the building in December 1976, and opened an adult bookstore and mini-movie arcade on February 14, 1977. The city sued two days later. The trial court enjoined the opening as a use barred by the new spacing rule, and on March 27, 1980, the Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed in Dandy Co., Inc. v. Civil City of South Bend, 401 N.E.2d 1380: the earlier bookstore use had been abandoned during the two dark years, so the 1977 opening was a new use the ordinance could reach, and that whether a store's stock is a "substantial or significant portion" adult — the ordinance's trigger — is a question answered case by case, not by a fixed percentage. The decision became part of the national zoning literature, cited for that definitional holding by federal courts in later adult-business cases far from Indiana. It is the city's first adult-trade case, and it is a zoning case about a bookstore: no social or membership club was anywhere in it.

Sources:

1. Dandy Co., Inc. v. Civil City of South Bend, County-City Complex, 401 N.E.2d 1380 (Ind. Ct. App., March 27, 1980) — Ordinance No. 6090-76 (December 14, 1976), the 1,000-foot and 500-foot rules, the 1524 South Miami Street tenancy history, the February 14, 1977 opening and the city's suit two days later, and the abandonment and definitional holdings.
2. Z.J. Gifts D-4, LLC v. City of Littleton (10th Cir. 2002) and later opinions citing Dandy for the case-by-case construction of "substantial or significant portion."