The Vices Troy Wants to Keep Out
Vol. IV. No. 23 - Troy's Draft Zoning Code Looks to Prohibit Certain Businesses
Today, this publication continues to look at Troy’s proposed Unified Development Code in advance of upcoming discussions by both the City’s Planning Commission and the City Council.
The code does more than reorganize zoning districts and modernize development rules. It also makes a clear policy choice about the kinds of businesses city leaders do not want to welcome. In a transmittal memo from city staff to the Planning Commission, staff highlight a list of uses that the draft code would prohibit outright, including adult-use cannabis operators, casino gaming centers, tattoo parlors, commercial truck parking lots, manufactured home sales, commercial solar and wind energy systems, and what the city calls “skill-based amusement centers.”
That list deserves some degree of public comment and discussion since this new code will regulate land use for the foreseeable future. The city is not just updating its land use rules. It is drawing a moral and economic line around certain uses that local officials appear to view as undesirable, low-value, or out of step with the kind of community image they want to project.
The proposed code would prohibit adult-use cannabis operators, even as Ohio law now permits recreational marijuana sales statewide. It would also prohibit casino gaming centers and commercial wind and solar energy systems, while keeping standalone automobile fuel dispensing stations off the table as a primary use, allowing them only as an accessory to a very large general merchandise retailer. Tattoo parlors are on the prohibited list as well, placing them in the same regulatory bucket as gambling-related uses and certain large-format or nuisance-generating land uses.
There is a coherent political instinct behind this. City leaders appear to be signaling that Troy does not want to become a place shaped by vice-oriented businesses, auto-oriented sprawl, or uses that they believe generate more controversy than community value. In that sense, the draft code is not ideologically neutral. It reflects a particular vision of respectability, order, and economic development.
But one item on the prohibited list stands out because it is poorly explained and easy to misunderstand: the “skill-based amusement center.” To an ordinary resident, that phrase sounds like a family arcade. Skee-ball is a skill-based game. So is pop-a-shot. So is whack-a-mole. If the city leaves the phrase unexplained, a reader could reasonably conclude that Troy is trying to ban the kind of light entertainment that might actually fit well in a commuynity that is trying to attract younger families.
There is an expectation that hopefully that is not what city staff mean. In Ohio, “skill-based amusement” usually refers to a category of regulated machines that sit in the gray area between amusement and gambling. These are the video terminals and storefront game rooms that function less like family arcades and more like mini-casinos, with customers putting in cash to play games that claim to rely on skill rather than chance. They are often marketed as amusement, but their real appeal is gambling-style play and cash or cash-equivalent payouts.
That distinction matters. If Troy is trying to prohibit storefront gambling parlors masquerading as amusement centers, that is a policy choice the city should defend openly and define clearly. But if the code simply says “skill-based amusement center” without clarifying that it is targeting Ohio-licensed gambling-adjacent machines rather than family arcades, the city risks creating confusion for residents, business owners, and even future boards and staff who will have to interpret the ordinance.
This is where the Planning Commission and the City Council should ask for cleaner language. The city can prohibit gambling-style skill game parlors if it wants to. But it should say so in plain English. A better definition would make clear that the ban applies to establishments whose primary business is operating cash-payout or gambling-adjacent skill machines, not ordinary indoor recreation or family entertainment uses.
More broadly, the prohibited-use list raises a larger question about the kind of city Troy is trying to become. The draft code does not merely regulate development. It expresses values. It says yes to some forms of commerce and no to others. That may be entirely appropriate. Zoning is, after all, a statement of community priorities. But if the city is going to take a firm stand against cannabis, gambling, tattoo parlors, and similar uses, it owes residents a fuller public explanation of why these particular businesses are being singled out and what broader economic and civic vision is guiding those decisions.
The proposed code is trying to tell a story about Troy. Before that story is adopted into law, the public should make sure it is being told clearly.
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Thanks to John And Kim, Rachelle. Loraine S., Loraine W., and a special anonymous donor, for your recent donations to this effort. So far this month — 71 books have been purchased! Thank you!