JEFFERSON CITY from www.kansascity.com - Sen. Matt Bartle’s [pictured] eight-year quest to crack down on strip clubs and adult bookstores finally succeeded Thursday night.
The Missouri Senate voted 27-4 to ban full nudity and prohibit adult businesses from selling alcohol. The clubs also would have to close between midnight and 6 a.m.
“Most human beings understand that if you mix alcohol and women dancing in the nude, that’s a tough combo,” said Bartle, a Lee’s Summit Republican. “Bad things happen.”
The vote, combined with the House’s 118-28 vote earlier Thursday, sends the bill to Gov. Jay Nixon. A spokesman for the Democratic governor said he was inclined to sign it.
Opponents said that the law will hurt all strip clubs and that hundreds, maybe thousands, of workers will lose their jobs. They said some clubs, including one or more of the 13 in Kansas City, could close — even as the state is seeking to create jobs in a recession-racked economy.
“What we do here has consequences,” said Sen. Jolie Justus, a Kansas City Democrat who opposed the bill.
But proponents of the measure didn’t buy that argument.
The adult entertainment industry “has become an embarrassment,” said Rep. Ed Emery, a Lamar Republican. “I’ve talked to more Missourians who have used that word. I hear people say, ‘I’m driving down the highway and I see these things (billboards) and what do I tell my kids?’ ”
Bartle’s battle to close the clubs began when he arrived in the Senate in 2003.
His cause took an unexpected turn this year when a federal grand jury launched an investigation that examined how some House leaders, including the then speaker, Rod Jetton, handled the bill in 2005. No one has been indicted.
Under the proposal, the adult entertainment industry would undergo major changes.
“Juice bars” that don’t sell alcohol, but present nude dancers, would be outlawed. Semi-nude dancers would have to stay at least 6 feet from patrons, and no touching would be allowed.
“All that lap dancing stuff, that’s gone,” Bartle said.
Adult businesses could not operate within 1,000 feet of a school, church, day-care facility, library, park, residence or another adult business. Operators would have to have an “unobstructed view … of every area of the premises.”
The House added a provision, which the Senate accepted, aimed at eliminating mud wrestling when at least one participant is semi-nude.
Dick Bryant, an attorney for the adult entertainment industry, said a legal challenge was a certainty.
“In the next 30 days, we’ll be in a courthouse talking to a judge about this,” he said.
The bill passed on the second to last day of the session, It was Bartle’s last shot because he is retiring from the Senate.
Bartle said that when he first introduced the bill eight years ago, he thought he would succeed. He said he introduced the bill at the request of constituents.
For years, adult businesses had operated largely in out-of-the-way locations, he said. But by the late 1990s, that changed.
“They began to just proliferate and became far more aggressive in advertising,” Bartle said in an interview Thursday.
He recalled one large sign not far from Kansas City International Airport.
“It was like, ‘Welcome to Kansas City,’ ” Bartle said. “It was so on the edge, in your face.”
In 2005, Bartle’s bill easily passed the Senate, but it died in the House after it was sent to an unfriendly committee.
Four days before the bill was assigned to that committee, strip club owners gave $35,000 in campaign contributions to a fundraising committee with ties to a top Jetton adviser.
After his grand jury testimony in February, Bartle said the donation was directly tied to undermining the legislation.
“The receipt of that money looks horrible,” Bartle told reporters that day. “And I think there is a link between that money and my bill dying.”
In 2006, a story about the donations first appeared in The Kansas City Star. From then on, Bartle said, infuriated House leaders worked to block Bartle-authored bills.
“I didn’t pass one single bill for four years,” Bartle said.
Just two days after Bartle testified for 50 minutes before the grand jury, he presented his adult entertainment bill on the Senate floor. It won quick approval. Bartle said its prospects had improved given the intense focus on the adult entertainment industry by federal prosecutors.
But the bill’s pace slowed in the House before it returned to the Senate, where Thursday night, opponents opted not to filibuster the bill. Still, Justus rose to oppose it.
“What I’m saying is, ‘Let’s let our cities and counties regulate themselves,’ ” Justus said.
In response to questions from Justus, Bartle said all of the bill’s key provisions have been tested in court.
“This is a reasonable, rational step,” he said. It “reflects where our people are, both Republican and Democratic.”
