Texarkana, Texas- Red River County commissioners are looking at limiting where sexually oriented businesses can be located within the county.

The Commissioner’s Court is drafting a 24-page ordinance that would limit sexually oriented businesses from opening within 1,500 feet of schools, churches, day care centers and residential property lines.

Red River County Judge Powell Peek said a topless club opening in nearby Hopkins County is what sparked talk about an ordinance.

According to the draft ordinance, which will likely be discussed again at the commissioners’ Nov. 8 meeting, sexually explicit businesses covered by the ordinance include: adult arcades; adult bookstores or adult video stores; adult cabarets; adult motels; adult motion picture theaters; adult theaters; escort agencies; nude model studios; andsexual encounter centers.

In order to run a sexually explicit business, the proposed business owners, clerks and employees must be licensed to operate or work in the establishment.

In order to receive a license, applications would be available from the sheriff. The sheriff, under the terms of the ordinance, would issue employees’ licenses within 60 days of the application’s submission.

Also, the proposed business would have to take out legal notices and publish its intent in two consecutive issues of a newspaper of general circulation within Red River County.

“I reviewed ordinances from neighboring counties as well as Smith County and Galveston County,” said Peek.

Peek and Red River County District Attorney Val Varley said one prior proposed guideline would created a 5,000-foot perimeter from the sexually oriented business and homes and churches and schools.

However, Varley was not sure that such a lengthy boundary would have passed constitutional muster.

“The purpose of the ordinance cannot be to exclude the sexually oriented businesses, but to regulate them,” said Varley.

But Varley says county officials do not want a large number of adult entertainment clubs opening in the county or the crime he and the commissioners fear may be associated with sexually explicit businesses.