Missouri Judge OK’s Restrictions on Adult Oriented Businesses
OK. I get keeping kids under 18 out, and zoning restrictions can be debated, but the rest of this makes no damned sense, IMO:
New restrictions on sexual businesses in Missouri will take effect tomorrow after a judge denied a request to block the law.
Cole County Circuit Judge Jon Beetem said today sexually oriented businesses likely will suffer economic loss as a result of the law. But he said that alone does not affect the legal analysis of the constitutional claims.
Beetem said sexually oriented businesses failed to prove their lawsuit likely will succeed and that they face irreparable harm by allowing the law to take effect.
The new law requires strip clubs and adult video and book stores to close by midnight. It bans full nudity, alcohol, minors and touching between semi-nude employees and customers. And it also limits where new sexually oriented businesses can be located.
In Columbia, Gene Gruender, owner of Passions Video Inc., an adult video and novelty store, said he expects the Missouri Association of Club Executives and others in the industry to continue to fight the ruling in court. Still, beginning tomorrow, they’ll be forced to comply with the new rules, which, he believes, will cripple the industry.
“A lot of people are going to lose their jobs,” Gruender said. “The unemployment rolls are going to swell.”
At particular issue in the lawsuit adult business owners filed was the legislature’s procedure for estimating how much the law would cost the state and local governments. The lawsuit claimed lawmakers ignored a request for a formal hearing on the expected cost and pinned a total fiscal note of less than $100,000 on the bill. But a trade group claimed if adult businesses are restricted as planned, at least 60 percent would close, costing the state about $2.7 million in lost sales tax and $720,000 in lost state withholding taxes, and it would put about 1,800 people out of work.
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