A hot-button issue of 2008 will resurface in 2009 when State Rep. Ed Emery files new legislation aimed at regulating adult video stores and other sexually oriented businesses.
Emery said he's gathering signatures on a bill that would, among other things, ban lap dances in strip clubs and force video stores to remove doors from so-called peep shows.
Emery introduced similar legislation midway through the 2008 General Assembly, after Jasper County residents banded together to fight what they understood was a strip club being built at the intersection of County Road 100 and Interstate 44.
He said that bill was introduced too late to get a fair hearing in the legislature.
"Right now my plan is to re-file it just like it came out of committee," Emery said. "It was attached to (State Sen.) Jack Goodman's village law. The Senate stripped it out after (Sen.) Chuck Graham threatened to filibuster it."
Emery, who represents rural Jasper County east of Carthage, including Sarcoxie, said this bill is one of his top priorities in 2009.
"We're in a culture that has really abandoned the family in many ways," Emery said. "As we see families weakening, we see these other issues the state faces come to surface. Whether you are talking about health care issues or law and order, dropouts in education, all of these issues the state faces, every one can be traced back, some of them very easily, to family issues. If we strengthen the family we are definitely going to improve those.
"When you look at sexually oriented businesses, it does not require a great amount of logic and training to see that that is not going to strengthen the family."
Emery said the efforts of Jasper County residents John Putnam, Pete Connelly, Jim Valenti and the other members of the citizen's group Citizens for a Decent Environment, helped him craft a bill that he thinks has a good chance of passing now that it will be considered at the beginning of the legislative session.
He said that group got Emery in contact with Tennessee attorney Scott Bergthold, a specialist in adult business regulation who helped him write the law that will be introduced in the next few days and testified in favor of it before a House committee last year.
"He is very well versed both in the types of laws that have worked and in what a number of different states can permit within their constitution," Emery said. "He was an exceptionally capable witness at the hearing and I thought answered the questions very well. It does not offend him to be challenged on these issues and he gives very factual and practical answers to each person as to why this makes sense."
Emery described what his bill would do.
"It puts some distance between the entertainers and the patrons. It set up some standards there that are being characterized as outlawing lap dancing, which if you apply strictly I guess it would unless you want to lap dance with all your clothes on.
"The main thing, and I think the most powerful part of the legislation was the way it opens up the businesses so you can't hide from view. You can go into these quote viewing booths unquote and watch your pornography and what other states have found is if you have a combination of taking the doors off of these viewing areas and ensuring that an employees can always see into these areas, that helps prevent problems and that's part of what the bill does. It requires the doors be removed and it requires that the area the employee sits can see into the booths and that someone is there all the time."
A county ordinance similar to this state bill was passed by the Jackson County Legislature in Independence last year, then promptly challenged in court by an adult business owner.
Lawmakers in Jackson County withdrew that ordinance and passed a new one, thus ending that court challenge. Information on whether a new court challenge had been filed was not available on Tuesday.
Last spring, the Jasper County Commission was poised to pass a similar county ordinance, but backed off when the court challenge was filed. It has not revisited that ordinance on advice from County Counselor Blake Wolf who said the commission should wait for the results of any court challenge to the Jackson County ordinance before passing one of its own.
Presiding Commissioner John Bartosh said he would prefer that the state pass Emery's bill and take the burden off counties.
"Why should every county in the state pass this ordinance, then pay to defend it against court challenges," Bartosh said. "The state should pass a law and the cost of defending it can be spread among everyone instead of the individual counties."
