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.
