PHOENIX — Some state lawmakers don’t want a city’s desire for new bars and restaurants to get in the way of new churches.

Legislation crafted by Rep. Steve Yarbrough, R-Chandler, would bar cities from using their zoning codes or other land use restrictions from blocking the location of houses of worship.

Yarbrough said there is an increasing effort by cities to try to keep churches out of certain neighborhoods that they want to instead help develop as an entertainment zone with new bars and restaurants that serve alcoholic beverages.

The problem, he said, is another state law which prohibits the location of any establishment with a liquor license within 300 feet of any church. What that means, Yarbrough said, is once a church goes in, it sets up a circle with a 300-foot radius keeping out those bars and restaurants.

Ken Strobeck, executive director of the League of Arizona Cities and Towns, questioned the need for the legislation. He said that, with one exception, there has been no such conflict.

It is that exception, though, that got Yarbrough’s attention.

The city of Yuma refused to grant Centro Familiar Cristiano Buenas Nuevas the required conditional use permit to operate a church on Main Street. City officials argued that allowing a church there would be in conflict with efforts by the city and private groups to revitalize the three-block downtown historic district as an area for retail stores, restaurants and entertainment.

Church officials, representing by the Center for Arizona Policy, filed suit in federal court. They claimed the city’s action runs afoul of the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act which restricts the ability of governments to discriminate against churches and other houses of worship.

But U.S. District Court Judge Neil Wake said the city did not run afoul of that federal law. He said the decision by the city to deny the permit “had nothing to do with the church’s religious motivation, but rather concentrated on its land use impacts and the consequences to the redevelopment plan.’’

And Wake said there were other suitable properties elsewhere in the community.

Yarbrough’s bill seeks, in essence, to overturn that ruling, not for the Yuma case which is on appeal but for future conflicts. And Deborah Sheasby, attorney for the Center for Arizona Policy which helped craft the measure, said it puts more constraints on what cities can do.

For example, it does allow a court to consider whether there are other parcels available elsewhere. But those parcels must be within what the church can afford financially and must be able to house the same number of people.

Potentially more significant, it says that the “religious mission’’ of the church must be considered. Sheasby said that was a factor that, had Yarbrough’s proposal been law, might have changed the outcome of the lawsuit.

“They felt that their religious mission was to minister in the downtown area,’’ she said. “The location was important to them from a religious perspective.’’

One other big difference is that HB 2569 says that a “compelling governmental interest’’ does not permit local government from imposing requirements on churches that do not exist for nonreligious businesses. By contrast, the federal law does take the government’s interest into account.

Yarbrough said the problem is not limited to downtown development.

“Twenty years ago we never would have seen churches in strip malls and industrial areas,’’ he said.

Now, he said, religious congregations look for space where they can find it. And Yarbrough said the desire of a city to have nearby restaurants and bars in the future should not make areas of the city off limits to religious worship.

He said nothing in this bill gives churches special treatment. For example, Yarbrough said, if a city requires a certain number of parking spaces for a facility based on the number of people who can be hosted, that same requirement would exist for a church.

And if a bar or restaurant is already there, the decision of a church to move in does not force the business out.

Yarbrough said if this measure succeeds he might consider looking at parallel issues. For example, he noted, some cities have put restrictions on locating privately run charter schools in downtown areas for the same reason: Their presence triggers the same 300-foot restriction on establishments with liquor licenses.

Tucson ran into that issue several years ago with its own downtown development projects.

There is another option: Lawmakers could simply repeal the laws that draw 300-foot protection zones around churches and schools. But Yarbrough said he’s not prepared to sponsor such a move.