The owners of Stars Cabaret, a nightclub chain that features clothing-optional dancers at its three locations (Bend, Beaverton, and Salem), want to open a fourth nightclub near Interstate 5 at Boones Ferry Road. The location is on McEwan Road, in that odd bit of territory east of the freeway that looks like it should be in Lake Oswego but is actually in Tualatin, Neighbors and others are upset and want to protest; the mayor of Tualatin says that he and the other four members of the city council all oppose Stars coming to Tualatin -- purely, he says, in their capacity as private citizens.
One of the most interesting arguments of the opponents is that the site is just 0.8 miles from an elementary school, and the owners (the opponents say) should locate somewhere that's farther from an elementary school. They didn't, as far as I know, say where such sites could be found, so I spent a few minutes with a map and protractor to see what parts of Lake Oswego, Tigard, and Tualatin are more than 0.8 miles from an elementary or junior high school. I included public and private schools, but excluded preschools and day care centers. I also measured straight-line distances, so I used a radius that was less than 0.8 miles.
It turns out that most of Tigard, Tualatin, and Lake Oswego is within 0.8 miles of an elementary or junior high school, and Stars picked one of only two commercial areas in Lake Oswego where it's possible to get that far away from a school.
The only retail area in Lake Oswego that's farther from a school is along Bangy Road (a sort of frontage road for I-5 near Kruse Way) and the west 800 feet of Meadows Road, in the area of the Chevys restaurant, Trader Joes, and some furniture showrooms.
Tigard has one commercial area that qualifies. It's a strip of Pacific Highway (99W) from the I-5 Tigard interchange to Dartmouth Street, about where Costco is, and 69th and 72nd Avenues south of 99W. (The headquarters of PERS qualifies.)
Tualatin has one commercial area that qualifies. It runs along Nyberg Road from the freeway west to Boones Ferry Road and includes the four blocks at the heart of the city, the urban renewal area (where the pond is), and the north part of Martinazzi Avenue near Fred Meyer.
So, whatever the other faults of the Stars cabaret, its owners have found a location that, in this part of town, is almost as far away from a grade school as it's possible to get. The Rivergrove opponents, who thought they had identified a weakness, inadvertently identified a strength.