JEFFERSON CITY, MO — Whenever legislators want to appear to be doing something they focus their litigious might on the adult entertainment industry. Such appears once again the case; this time with Rep. Ed Emery (R-Lamar), who has it out for Missouri state strip clubs and adult shops.Unfazed by the fact anti-industry legislation that he introduced during 2008 went the way of the dinosaur, the ever-hopeful Emery told the News-Leader that he plans to return his failed bill with few changes to the table during the 2009 legislative session.
Emery’s previous failure was called House Bill 2026 and would have ordained that all strip clubs and other adult businesses be located at least 1,000 feet from schools, parks, churches and day-care facilities.
In an attempt end the scourge of consensual lap dances in Missouri strip clubs, his previously proposed bill stated that “No employee who appears in a semi-nude condition in a sexually oriented business shall knowingly or intentionally touch a patron or the clothing of a patron in a sexually oriented business.”
That right; no hugging the husband, no shaking hands with the best friend’s girlfriend, no congratulatory embraces when customers share good news – and no three-minute grinding on a friendly stranger’s lap for $20.
In hopes of making the restrictions even more heinous, Emery has proposed that partially clothed performers “shall be and remain on a fixed stage at least six feet from all patrons and at least eighteen inches from the floor in a room of at least six hundred square feet.”
Emery’s fear of bare female flesh and fear of fornication is at its “most powerful” within the bill, according to its author, when it demands that each strip club contain no obstructed views, in order to avoid things getting too sexy “behind closed doors.”
With the new legislative session beginning on January 7th and ending in the middle of May, Missouri lawmakers will have plenty of time to ignore Emery’s latest attempts to drive adult businesses from the area – as well as his plan to replace the state’s income tax with a higher sales tax.
