Missouri- Erotic City has shut down its pornographic video booths and nude dancing bar in the wake of new Jackson County regulations aimed at the Blue Summit business.
An attorney for Erotic City said Thursday that he was reviewing a 38-page ordinance passed by the County Legislature on Tuesday. He plans to meet with business owners today .
“Whatever it takes to get in compliance, they will do,” said Barry F. Laws III.
The area of the store where magazines, DVDs and novelties are sold remains open, Laws said.
Laws was unsure whether managers would reopen video booths and a bar upstairs or whether they would shut down the business entirely.
The store’s 26 video booths were blocked off Thursday and the stairs to the bar were gated, said Chris Saxton, a Jackson County environmental inspector who went there for a routine check of its food operation.
Erotic City has operated at 8401 E. Truman Road, just east of the city limits of Kansas City, for many years. Until this week’s ordinance, it had been largely unregulated.
In recent years, Erotic City was the subject of frequent calls to the sheriff’s office by Erotic City’s management and customers with complaints ranging from assaults to car thefts and property damage.
The county finally took action after a recent federal conviction involving a man who had sex with a 14-year-old girl at Erotic City. She alleged there was an “orgy room,” where 20 men had sex with her at a time. Last week, a 16-year-old boy told authorities he had been sexually assaulted outside the business.
Erotic City’s owners have not been charged with any offenses.
The legislature unanimously passed the ordinance after hearing testimony that Erotic City generated crime and posed the potential for spreading sexually transmitted diseases.
The regulations are patterned after a Kansas City ordinance that reined in adult businesses a decade ago. Among other things, the ordinance bans sex or sex solicitation and prohibits locked doors on video booths. It also requires employees to be licensed and pass background checks for felony or sex-related convictions.
County Executive Mike Sanders said businesses would have 60 to 90 days to comply with most parts of the ordinance but that some sections took immediate effect — such as a ban on sexual activity and a requirement that nude dancers have no contact with customers.
Sanders said the ordinance affects only unincorporated Jackson County. Cities within the county have ordinances of their own. The only other adult businesses in unincorporated Jackson County are two After Dark video stores that primarily sell magazines, DVDs and novelties.