Missouri- A southwest Missouri lawmaker intends to seek a law next year creating a host of new rules for adult sex stores and strip clubs, including a ban on lap dances.

Rep. Ed Emery, R-Lamar, [pictured] introduced the legislation during the 2008 session, but it did not pass.

Emery said he intends to file the bill again in the 2009 legislative session, which begins Jan. 7 and runs through mid-May. He said the language would remain mostly the same.

The previous legislation, House Bill 2026, would have required strip clubs be located at least 1,000 feet from schools, churches, parks and day-care facilities.

Under the ban on lap dances, the bill stated: “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 orientated business.”

The distance regulation adds that semi-nude dancers “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 said the “most powerful” aspect of the bill also would ban any obstructed views in a strip club, requiring all areas of the establishment be in open view to prevent incidents from happening “behind closed doors.”

“The reports we’ve heard is taking the doors off and making the area visible really has done a lot in the states that have done that,” Emery said.

Emery also intends to file a bill seeking a two-year study of how replacing the state income tax with a higher sales tax — the so-called Fair Tax — would impact the state budget.

In order to make the Fair Tax a reality, Emery said the legislature needs to appropriate money to the Department of Revenue to study the issue before it can go to voters in 2010.

“Until we actually have some legislative commitment, it’s difficult for them to have the man hours to carve out the numbers,” Emery said.

Under a Fair Tax system where only consumption — not income — is taxed, Emery said the rate could be between 4.5 and 5.5 percent, eliminating the 6 percent earnings tax for all income above $9,000. The current state sales tax is 4.225 percent.

Fair Tax systems are designed to encourage citizens to keep more of their paycheck and pay taxes based on consumption of food and goods.

Emery said one of the best benefits of a Fair Tax would be the elimination of the numerous tax credits, deductions and exemptions carved into the tax code.

“The fair tax eliminates a lot of this gamesmanship that happens in our tax code,” Emery said. “Some government officials don’t like that, giving up that power.”