ROBERTSDALE, Ala. -- The Robertsdale City Council will be considering the adoption of a pair of ordinances over the next couple of months.

The two ordinances, which were drafted by city attorney Ken Raines, were presented to the council at its meeting Monday.

The first ordinance would restrict the placement of businesses that sell adult materials and would also limit tattoo shops within the city’s zoning jurisdiction.

“By law, you can’t put something in place that would prevent businesses like this from coming in,” Raines said, “but you can place restrictions on where the businesses are and how many there can be in a given area.”

Raines presented two drafts to the council at Monday’s meeting. The second draft, he said, would provide more protection for the city.

The ordinance would restrict the sale of adult materials and tattoo shops within a certain distance of certain areas, such as a school or church.

The ordinance also restricts placement of the businesses within a residential area or within a certain distance from a residence and also restricts placement of two businesses of that type within a certain distance from each other.

“In other words we can draft the ordinance to say that you couldn’t place two adult book stores or two tattoo parlors within, say 1,000 feet of each other,” said Mayor Charles Murphy, “or you couldn’t place an adult bookstore within 1,000 feet of a tattoo parlor.”

Businesses would also have to come before the city’s Planning Commission and meet all the requirements set forth by the Planning Commission in order to be approved.

The proposed ordinance will go before the planning commission to address any concerns members might have before coming back to the council for approval.

If the planning commission can look over the ordinance and make recommendations at its October meeting, the ordinance could come back to the council for approval as early as the first meeting in November, which is Nov. 4. Otherwise, it would come back to the council for approval at its Dec. 3 meeting.

The second ordinance pertains to the drafting of a diversion plan for non-habitual offenders that fall within the city’s municipal court system.

Raines, who is also the city’s prosecutor, drafted the bill, which he believes would be the first of its kind in Baldwin County.

Under the ordinance, first-time offenders or those who could be designated as non-habitual offenders, could qualify for diversion, which means they would pay a fee and be sentenced to serve some type of community service. In exchange, the arrest would be expunged from their record.

“This would apply strictly to non-violent offenders and crimes where it is determined that no one was hurt as a result,” Raines said.

Concerns were expressed over whether or not the city’s bookkeeping software could handle the record-keeping necessary to keep up with the payments and the fact that someone would have to oversee the policing of the program.

Plans are for the ordinance to come back to the council for consideration at its Nov. 4 meeting.

In other business Monday, the council:

• Reappointed Teddy Mitchell to serve on the city’s Library Board.

• Approved an engineering contract with Preble-Rish LLC for the Rochelle Loop drainage project at a cost of $42,800.

• Approved the purchase of a bulldozer for the city’s utilities department at a cost of $117,527. A down payment can be made leaving $100,000 to be financed. The item was approved as part of the 2013-14 budget passed during the council’s Sept. 16 meeting.

• Approved a request by the Robertsdale Rotary Club to use the city’s billboard to advertise three upcoming events: Doc Cooper’s Haunted Swamp, which will be held Oct. 26; the Robertsdale Christmas Parade, Dec. 7; and the Rotary Rodeo, scheduled for March of 2014. The council also approved the use of two coliseum days in 2014 for the rodeo.