CARTHAGE, MO — Missouri may not be the Show Me State much longer if a state representative has his way.State Rep. Ed Emery [R-Lamar] plans to reintroduce this month controversial statewide adult-business regulatory codes. Among other things, the proposed legislation would ban lap dances and mandate the removal of doors from video-store viewing booths.
Emery introduced similar legislation in 2008, but the bill’s appearance midway through the session kept it from getting “a fair hearing,” he said.
“Right now my plan is to re-file it just like it came out of committee,” Emery told the Carthage Press. “It was attached to [Republican State Sen.] Jack Goodman’s village law. The Senate stripped [the adult regulations rider] out after [Democratic Sen.] Chuck Graham threatened to filibuster it.”
He doesn’t intend to let that happen again in 2009, he added.
“We’re in a culture that has really abandoned the family in many ways,” he told the Carthage Press. “As we see families weakening, we see these other issues the state faces come to the surface. Whether you are talking about healthcare 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 [adult entertainment] is not going to strengthen the family.”
Emery’s first statewide adult-business-regulation bill arose after residents of rural Jasper County, which he represents, attempted to prevent a strip club from opening. He sought help from the voices involved in that endeavor, including Citizens for a Decent Environment and Tennessee anti-porn attorney Scott Bergthold, and the bill is sound, he said. He thinks it stands a good chance of passing this year.
Bergthold’s voice increasingly is heard in the fight against smut, in both his own state and others.
“[Bergthold] 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 told the Carthage Press. “He was an exceptionally capable witness at the [state House] hearing [in 2008], 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 said he feels secure the bill will pass constitutional muster, unlike a similar ordinance enacted in Jackson County last year. Those regulations were challenged out of the gate, then rewritten to forestall court action. There has been no word yet about whether the new regs will face legal challenges, as well.
Jackson County Presiding Commissioner John Bartosh said he would be delighted for the state to step in and take the burden of adult-business regulation out of local hands.
“Why should every county in the state pass this ordinance, then pay to defend it against court challenges?” Bartosh asked in the Carthage Press. “The state should pass a law, and the cost of defending it can be spread among everyone instead of the individual counties.”
According to Emery, the proposed statewide legislation “puts some distance between the entertainers and the patrons. It sets 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, is the way it opens up the businesses so you can’t hide from view,” he told the Carthage Press. “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 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.”
