KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Jackson County Legislature unanimously passed an ordinance Tuesday to regulate adult businesses in the county's unincorporated areas, according to The Kansas City Star.
Drafted by county executive Mike Sanders, a former prosecutor, the 38-page ordinance was proposed in the wake of recent concerns over a high number of reported crimes since 2004 at Erotic City, located just outside the Kansas City corporate limits.
While Kansas City and other towns in the county have strict adult business regulations in place, rural areas like the one where Erotic City is located have been "no different that what we had in the Wild West," Sanders told the legislature in presenting the ordinance.
The Jackson County sheriff's department galvanized Sanders' case with a list of 115 calls from Erotic City's address to which deputies had responded since early 2004, for incidents including assaults, auto thefts, harassment and property damage. This represented a far higher number of calls than from any other business in the county.
In November, a man was convicted in federal court for taking a 14-year-old girl onto the premises of Erotic City for sex. The girl testified that she had sex with approximately 20 men in an "orgy room" there.
The new ordinance, Sanders said, is based on ones in Kansas City and elsewhere. Among other things, it requires employees of adult businesses to be licensed, bans locked doors and wall openings in video booths, and requires owners to prohibit loitering, sex or solicitation on the premises.
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