Kansas- from www.kansan.com – Adult businesses may be placed under new restrictions if the Community Defense Act passes through Kansas legislature.

The Community Defense Act would prohibit semi-nude dancers from touching patrons and would restrict adult businesses, which includes both strip clubs and pornography shops, from operating within 1,000 feet of schools, parks, houses of worship and other adult businesses.

Under the current bill, existing adult businesses would be grandfathered in.

Philip Bradley, a Lawrence-based lobbyist for adult entertainment businesses, said adult bookstores should be considered separately from adult entertainment.

“The two of them are linked in one bill, and that’s the problem,” Bradley said.

Bradley said adult entertainment businesses were already regulated and that communities have come out against new regulations on strip clubs because it would override local regulations already in place. When the House Committee on Federal and State Affairs sent the bill to the full House, it attached a note acknowledging that the bill is opposed by some local governments.

Family and women’s groups have come out in support of the bill. Michael Schuttloffel, director of the Kansas Catholic Conference, testified before the committee last week that the bill would place necessary restrictions of adult businesses.

“If there can be no possible regulation of the establishment of so-called ‘adult entertainment centers’ next to our homes, schools, churches and playgrounds, then what space will be left to the great majority of us that are deeply offended by their presence and wish to avoid their well-documented negative secondary effects?” Schuttloffel said in testimony.

Bradley said that there was little evidence to support claims that adult businesses lead to higher crime. If anything, strip clubs have lower rates of crime because of increased police and security presence, Bradley said.

“It’s a solution looking for a problem,” Bradley said.