A letter sent to the Jasper County Commissioners raises concerns about one specific section of the new county ordinance regulating strip clubs, and an attorney from Kansas City says the section could leave the county vulnerable to a lawsuit.
Attorney Kevin Jamison specializes in litigating and teaching about Missouri’s law allowing licensed individuals to carry concealed guns, and he said Section 10 of the county’s cabaret ordinance violates state law.
That section prohibits anyone from carrying a concealed weapon into an adult cabaret, or strip club, and provides that violators may be punished with up to a year in jail and up to a $1,000 fine.
“Why don’t you ask your county commissioners why they want the county to be sued successfully?” Jamison said. “Is this full employment for lawyers ordinance or do they think the county has too much money and it should be given to other people? If they would look at the statutes of Missouri, section 21.750, it says ‘Local government ordinances cannot be more restrictive than state law.’
“State law does not prevent people from going into strip clubs with guns, so the county can’t do it. It’s open and shut.”
The concern was raised in a letter emailed to Presiding Commissioner John Bartosh and area media by a Lamar resident, Paul Wilkinson.
In his letter, Wilkinson said he believes there are several sections of the ordinance that are “questionable at best,” but the section regarding concealed weapons could “result in litigation against the county for improper arrest.”
The County Commissioners did not hold their regular meeting on Thursday because all three of them were in training sessions in Jefferson City, but Bartosh, when contacted by telephone Thursday morning, said he had not read Wilkinson’s letter.
Assistant Prosecutor Blake Wolf, who wrote the ordinance, said Jamison and Wilkinson were “dead wrong,” in their reading of the law.
“The county can regulate places like cabarets where there is a specific state statute giving us the ability to regulate certain businesses,” Wolf said. “Every business can prohibit people from carrying concealed weapons into their business, we’re just standing in lieu of the business and saying people can’t carry weapons in cabarets.”
The ordinance was written after county residents raised concerns about a possible strip club under construction on the southeast corner of the interchange between County Road 100 and Interstate 44.
Residents who live in the area have held meetings about how to prevent a strip club from coming to the interchange. Bartosh said he asked for the ordinance to make it as difficult as legally possible for someone to open a strip club anywhere in the county.
Joplin Attorney Bill Fleishaker, who represents Sta-Lo, based in Wichita, Kan., and operator Ernie Doyle, said he has read the ordinance and feels there may be several parts of it that are open to legal challenge. Sta-Lo Oil is listed in county building and septic permits as the operator of the club.
“I don’t want to telegraph my punches if we do decide to go after it, but I’ve read it and we’ve got a lot of problems with it,” Fleishaker said. “The concealed carry section may be the least unlawful part of the ordinance.”
Fleishaker said he and his client have not yet discussed whether they will challenge the law in court.
Wilkinson said he may live in Barton County, but he grew up in Jasper County, has family in the county and works in the county.
He wrote the letter because he was concerned about the possible violation of the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms and the fact that he felt it violated state law.
“It’s not that I want nudie bars in the area, but if people really want an effective law, it needs to stand up to judicial review,” Wilkinson said. “I’m a member of the NRA, Missouri Shooters, and Missouri Sport Shooters Association, and anything that comes up like this that violates the Second Amendment or concealed carry raises a red flag for me. If we allow such a blatant violation of the law here, it will spread like wildfire to other counties.”
Wolf said he added the section because the county was concerned about the safety of people who go into the strip club. He said a lot of research went into the ordinance.
“I really don’t expect anyone to challenge the ordinance when people do a little bit of research,” Wolf said. “Most people shoot from the hip when they see something like this before they’ve had a chance to really look at the statutes. We have the authority to pass ordinances regulating adult cabarets and we have the authority to put this in the ordinance.”
Jamison said while the state law says no one can carry a concealed firearm into any place that sells, alcohol, the law doesn’t say anything about cabarets or strip clubs.
He said he understands that residents are concerned about strip clubs in their neighborhood, but including a provision about concealed firearms just opens the county to lawsuits.
“They don’t need to get into that can of worms,” Jamison said. “If they want to really prevent people from being happy, they don’t have to drag in license to carry. A lot of people don’t want this in their backyard and I can understand that. They could get where they want to go without having this problem. But, hey, if they want to stir up business for lawyers, God bless them.”
More on the Web:
Jamison has a Web site where he offers details about Missouri’s concealed carry law and sells DVDs with information about concealed carry and self defense. The Web site is http://productions.learntocarry.com/
