The Gainesville Code of Ordinances remains a source of contention for local committees after a Thursday meeting about revisions to its anti-discrimination chapter.
Gainesville's Equal Opportunity Committee will recommend that the City Commission adopt a series of revisions, which deal with the ordinance's effect on businesses.
Commissioner Craig Lowe, chair of the committee and founder of pro-ordinance group Equality is Gainesville's Business, explained his proposed revisions, which would delete pieces of the ordinance requiring businesses to modify their buildings to fit the ordinance.
"We are proposing that the city commission modify the ordinance to remove any remote possibility that businesses would have to construct facilities any different than they would under the building codes," Lowe said.
Instead, the ordinance would include a blanket exemption for businesses where patrons in shared showering or dressing facilities cannot avoid being seen fully unclothed.
"We're trying to address the concerns of the business community," he said. "They came to us in an atmosphere of collaboration to work together to find a solution that's best for the entire community."
Mark Minck, chair of Citizens for Good Public Policy, said that while he commended the committee for addressing the concerns of the business community, he felt that the portion of the community who voted for Charter Amendment 1 in the March elections are not being heard.
The amendment would have removed the anti-discrimination chapter of the ordinance.
Minck said he wants the commission to acknowledge the state statute that allows businesses to designate and enforce separate restrooms for men and women.
"We never wanted a person who's transgendered to not be able to get a job or get kicked out of their house," he said. "It was the public accommodations provision that had this self-definition that allowed a man to walk up to a woman's restroom and say, 'I'm going in there because I have the inner sense of being a woman.'"
