This might be regarded as a follow up to KCSHYGUY's post about a month ago.  

The State of Missouri is making its best effort to become the State of Misery.  A bill designed to close strip clubs across the state has been passed in the Missouri senate committee and is ready to go to the Senate floor.  Senator Matt Bartles handcrafted the bill, SB 32, and makes no bones about his intent to chase strip clubs out of the state, and attack "sexually oriented businesses" in general.  

His keystone strategy, for all you believers in fair taxation, is to destroy them with special taxes, but the bill is chock full of harassments.  Here's sample of the bills main sections taken from the Missouri Senate Website (see link)

-A $5 admission tax per patron entering the business;

-A further 25 percent gross revenue tax, to go to the State School's Money Fund (which the state loots with impunity);

-Prohibits the viewing or "exhibition" of films or videos as a Class A misdemeanor;

-Prohibits anyone under the age of 21 from being employed or patronizing a sexually-oriented business as a Class A misdemeanor;

-Prohibits a person from appearing nude, performing or similating sexual activities in the business, and prohibits employees further from doing so unless they are a certain distance away from patrons and behind a rail [to protect them from cooties, obviously!]

-Prohibits anyone in a semi-nude state from soliciting or receiving money;

-Prohibits the business to operate form 10 p.m. to 10 a.m. on weekdays and Saturdays, and demands that not operate on Sundays and Holidays [reinstating the Blue Laws Plus.]

They are all Class A misdeamenors, but you could see from the way it's written that a club could easily end up loaded down with hundreds of them.  

I encourage anyone who thinks their voice would matter to the Missouri Senate to call them, write them, do anything you can.  Also, if you don't like the idea of taxing-to-destroy, like many Republicans, call Republican Senator Matt Bartles and tell him why you don't like his tax-to-destroy strategy.  His number is (573) 751-1464.  His email is: [email protected].


 


-- Modified on 3/25/2005 7:15:51 AM

(For those who object to my use of terms such as "disdainful," "nuisance," please turn down your flamethrowers and consider the perspective of my reader.)

Dear Senator_____

I ask you to please consider carefully the consequences and dangers if SB 32 passes.  I do realize that to anyone in your position, it looks superficially to be a strong stand for a good and popular cause.  Please, ... weigh carefully its dangers and implications.  I will declare to you that it proposes an undercutting freedom, rights and commerce, just to attack what amounts to a disdainful nuisance.

Its most flagrant affront to Missourians is SECTION 67.2542, the proposed $5 admission tax for each person entering a sexually oriented business, and the 25 percent tax on gross revenues for its targets.  As John Marshall wrote (and we know it's true) the power to tax is the power to destroy. This is obviously the purpose here, and the bill's sponsor, Matt Bartles makes no bones about it.  Please consider carefully the implications of the State abusing its power to tax explicitly to destroy something, even something objectionable, and what it means for the goal of fair taxation in general.  If taxes-to-destroy have been accepted practice in Missouri, it's a bad habit, and this would be a good time to break it, Sir.  Any freedom loving government must restrain itself from this temptation.

Think of the attack on freedom and the simple dishonesty this section entails.  When the purpose of demanding money from a business is to punish or destroy, the renumeration should be regarded a fine not a tax, the act prompting it should be called a crime or a violation, and the transgressor must be granted due process.   But with this law, the State would be disguising the first to assume the second, for the purpose of denying the third.  Meanwhile, Missouri would also be compromising the neutrality of the Department of Revenue with the purpose of covert punishment, and diverting our tax money from this vital function.   It furthermore compromises the neutrality of the State in general and affirms destruction, harassment and revenue as equally legitimate tax purposes.

Is this mendacity in our government really worth it to avoid lewd behavior?  I will declare that if lewd behavior is obscene or vile, taxing-for-destruction is more so.  I'd rather live and raise my children in a neighborhood with three-well run strip clubs than live in one with three churches within a state that plunders merely disagreeable citizens into better behavior.      

And you don't know what more disagreeable behaviors will come next when avoiding malicious taxes that serve no revenue purpose becomes paramount, or how Missouri might be tempted to respond if taxing-for-destruction is already its principle.

The bill's other sections are of very dubious purpose.  Section SECTION 67.2548, for example, setting capricious age restrictions on sexual oriented businesses.   I will point out that the Age of Consent in Missouri is 17 for females.  The age of majority is 18.   A general age of consent/majority is the cornerstone of contract law and the concept of consensual sex.  There are good reasons for them. Nevertheless, the State arbitrarily applying a random age restriction is an affront commerce in general and an insult to all adults.  On what basis does it do this?  That women can't make a disagreeable employment decision until three years after normal majority?   True, we restrain the drinking age till 21, but only in the face of unconscionable death and injury on the road.   Avoiding enormous loss of life and limb should be a legislator's guideline on age-restricting laws.

I could go on to other sections, Sir, but I hope it's only necessary to say now there are many, many troubles with this bill and its many violations of freedom, rights and commerce.  It can't be fixed.  I ask you, I urge you, please, ... vote against it and put it to rest.  There are better ways to deal with the sex industry and its problems than to stomp on freedom, strangle commerce, impoverish and further marginalize more women, make Missourians miserable, and in general make Missouri government public obscenity No. 1.

Thank you very much for taking time to read this and consider this issue.

Time to out of the Bible Belt and Move to New England where , for the most part, where we will give our opinion, but not force our religious beliefs on you.

This is obviously a political move aimed at the religious side.

It is sad that people cannot make their own decisions.

It doesn't matter what you, whether it be writing letters, making phone calls, sending emails, etc. The religious right is on a mission to eliminate anything they deem "immoral" in the US, regardless of whether or not it's unconstitutional or tramples on our rights. I live in Kentucky, and there is a non-stop attack on strip clubs, adult bookstores, and any other type of adult entertainment. They recently passed a bill banning any nudity in strip clubs, placing a 6-foot buffer zone between dancers and patrons, making them close at midnight, no alcohol, etc etc etc. The strip clubs are currently appealing it, but it's only a matter of time until the neocons get their way. Honestly, what right does the government have to tell a person what they can do with their own body as long as they are not harming anyone else? What harm are these clubs doing? If you don't like them, don't go to them. Simple as that.

Good grief!

5 ft limit to how close you can be to a dancer

This is ridiculous, archaic, naive and backward. Our sexuality is a natural part of who we are as human beings. I cannot just sit back and watch this progression toward intolerance anymore. It's been my plan to start traveling to Europe where their view of sex is enlightened and more realistic. I don't see this as a cure-all but I'm sick and tired of looking over my shoulder and being treated like one of the Salem witches. America needs to grow up but it's not going to happen for a while. We're in one of those "puritannical" cycles and I for one and not going to wait it out. I love and am proud of the service I offer and I want to continue to be able to offer it. If it's somewhere else in the interim, so be it. I will still tour the U.S. but VERY carefully. I know Missouri won't be on the tour schedule.

There, I feel better. I'll get off the soapbox and let someone else make a fool of themselves now. LOL

Sincerely and with a Smile,
Anneke

On not only state level but also local and even national level (george w's current push for constitutional ammendment not being agains a business but still is part of the same trend we are seeing) I know here they are trying to come up with all sorts of new rules about what can cannot be sold when where by whom, percentage of adult oriented toys the list goes as long as the subject of sex and the law.
With the regretable victory of George W those whom are most vocal and supported him have this sense of being empowered and that their way is the only way. Thus they are pushing our law makers raising their voices even more all to impose their personal standards on all.
And this in a nation that was founded on the idea of personal freedom. At times I fear we may in next few yrs almost become a police state with the ever growing losses of privacy, personal freedom of choice, protections against unreasonable government searches, interventions etc. To me it is scarry

Pols of both stripes for years have been using the power of the state to modify behavior. Helmet laws, taxes on cigs and booze. Junk food's next...

Good luck in your fight, I'd include myself as an undersigned....

I hope some of the others who agree are quicker to recoginze when bad principles are being applied to "Good causes" next time.

BK



-- Modified on 3/25/2005 8:33:36 PM

I'm hoping I get a chance to see you before you go to Europe, or one of your future tours afterward.

-- Modified on 3/25/2005 9:38:49 PM

It's like belling the cat.  Is anybody willing to personally testify in legislative committee against this scheme?  I doubt it.  Sure, it would make good copy for the media, but it would also expose you in front of your family, friends, and coworkers.  And you can be very sure that the other side will say things designed to get under your skin so you will get pushed into losing your cool in public.  You would face many committed and vocal opponents, all looking at you, glaring at you, condemning you with every cold stare.

It's easier said than done.

exhibition or viewing of videos part.  Sounds like the 1st Amendment just took another body blow.

With stuff such as this and Congress' action in the Schiavo case, should we start sewing up sickle and hammer arm bands right now?

I'll be in Chicago again April 25th-29th. I'm still going to be living and touring in the U.S. Not to worry. I couldn't leave all my favorite gents behind. I LOVE the boys in the U.S. Just don't love what's going on here right now.

perhaps the area they won in terms of SQUARE MILEAGE was convincing, but they conveniently forget that some of those blue areas have more people than about 10 entire red states!.........

There's a few of outrages against the first amendment here.

From the website (this is a summary, not the actual wording):

SECTION 67.2546 - This section prohibits the exhibition of films, videos, DVDs, or other video reproductions depicting specified sexual activities in viewing rooms at sexually oriented businesses. A person who violates this provision is guilty of a Class A misdemeanor.

SECTION 67.2552 - It is a Class A misdemeanor for a person to knowingly and intentionally appear nude or depict, perform, or simulate specified sexual activities in a sexually oriented business...

[same section] It is a Class A misdemeanor for an employee, while semi-nude in a business, to solicit any pay or gratuity from a customer or for a customer to pay an employee while he or she is in a semi-nude state.

The Supreme Court has ruled "commercial speech" as protected by the first amendment.  By implication, one would think that entire  section is unconstitutional.  It doesn't matter, the third-world legislature will hammer it through anyway.  It's terrible how flagrant this is and how we again have to depend on the courts eventually maybe, knocking this down-- after a lot of harm has already been done.

I could understand regulation if there is some physical commodity really bought, but here they are limiting what really amounts to  communication-for-pay.  

If they wonder why we have activists judges, it's because the legislators don't do their job, and most of the constituency is brain-dead to it.

As the legislative pendulum  swings ever further into the ultra conservative, puritanical ethic. Corruption, elitism and organized crime will proliferate from the ensuing prohibitions. It really should make you wonder just WHO or what is behind these current moralist efforts.

  Cm.

and the girls could dance on stage but when you were done , you had to go and sit in a designated area and not with the customers. so basically the men stared at you , no one tipped, and the only girls making money there were not doing it by dancing.

Yes, easier said than done, I agree.  One problem is that people who enjoy their freedoms almost never have as much time to defend them against people who resent them the most.

But there's never been a time like this with the internet, where for once, people in what's now called "the hobby" can communicate nationwide, and even worldwide, and could find out, among other things, that they are generally good people. It helps them defy the propaganda that's been holding them down, and the repression and social stigmas that's kept them isolated from each other.

But that flies in the face of the number one provider-complaint I hear about clients: hygiene. Has your nose ever actually been within 3 feet of a Frenchmen? It ain't pretty.