A state senator who says travelers into Missouri see us as "the smut state" because they see the increasing number of sexually-oriented businesses thinks he knows how to correct that impression. Senator Jack Goodman of Mount Vernon wants to make it harder for those businesses to operate.
Goodman says travelers from out of state have told him they find it regrettable that one of the most visible impressions they get from all of those businesses and all of those billboard is that Missouri is a "smut state."
He proposes a law limiting the hours those businesses can operate, forbidding them within one-thousand feet of a school, church, daycare center, library, park, residence, or other sexually-oriented business. Alcohol would not be allowed. Total nudity would not be allowed either.
Goodman says counties could stop them but will not. So the state must. He says the six counties in his district have rejected county planning and zoning because voters don’t want some of the land-use restrictions that go with it.
Debate has started in the Senate on Goodman’s bill but he has not gotten it to a vote.