A small town on the Georgia-Tennessee border voted to ban abortion clinics Monday because the city’s mayor wants to avoid anti-choice protesters who gather outside the clinics.

A small town on the Georgia-Tennessee border voted to ban abortion clinics Monday because the city’s mayor wants to avoid “drama” caused by anti-choice protesters who gather outside the clinics.

According to the Chattanooga Times Free-Press, Teddy Harris, the mayor of Rossville, Georgia, said that the new ordinance, which will need to pass a second city council hearing to make it official, was about avoiding the protests that often accompany abortion clinics. “We want to be a peaceful city,” Harris said. “We don’t want to have any protesters.”

Harris, elected as mayor in November 2011, is a conservative Republican who often posts anti-Obamacare messages on his Facebook page.

The city council voted to approve two new ordinances. Ordinance #481 bans abortion services and Ordinance #482 bans so-called pill mills. The council will vote to make both ordinances official when it meets again on December 8.

Sex. Abortion. Parenthood. Power. The latest news, delivered straight to your inbox. SUBSCRIBE

The abortion ban makes exceptions for abortions if they are performed at a hospital by a licensed physician and are deemed by that doctor to be necessary to save the woman’s life. The doctor must also certify that the fetus is not viable. There is not a hospital within the Rossville city limits.

The pill mill ban targets clinics that claim to be health care facilities, but illegally dispense pain medications to those who do not have a prescription.

Harris again cited similar reasons for the pill mill ban. “We don’t want one for the drama,” Harris said during a meeting with the council, reported the Times Free-Press. “Law enforcement (here) can’t handle it.”

Pill mills are already illegal under both Georgia state law and federal law, and in 2012 state lawmakers passed legislation to crack down on pill mills. Harris says the ordinance is just another “tool” for law enforcement.

Georgia lawmakers have also introduced and passed several pieces of legislation over the last several years to restrict access to abortion in the state.

As of 2011, there were 19 clinics that provide abortion services in the state. Ninety-six percent of the state’s counties have no clinic, and 58 percent of Georgia women live in these counties, according to the Guttmacher Institute.