KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A federal judge agrees: Sexy signs just have no place near the highway.
The case came before the court when John Haltom [pictured], who owns 10 stores that sell lingerie, sex toys and adult videos in six states, filed a lawsuit last year against the attorney general's office.
He took issue with a law that prohibits most signs for sexually oriented businesses from being posted within a mile of the highway. Any business that devotes more than 10 percent of their display space to sexually oriented merchandise faced the restrictions.
Haltom said the billboard law is too broad and curtails his right to commercial speech. He also said that while his businesses between 10 percent and 25 percent of its display space to sexually oriented items, the law was too broad to consider his locations as adult businesses. But Fenner, who has upheld the law in past challenges, disagreed.
He also said that the law bans advertising for a store's sexually oriented business, not the store itself. It could still post billboards advertising its non-adult items, if it chose.
State Sen. Matt Bartle, who spearheaded the legislation, said he was confident the law would survive, but predicted more challenges.
