Question: What will LB 443 do?
Answer:   LB 443 would place several statewide regulations on sexually oriented businesses.  

Question:  What is a sexually oriented business (hereinafter SOB)?
Answer:  A sexually oriented business is an operation which has, as one of its principal or primary purposes, a significant or substantial portion of its activities relating to "specified anatomical areas" or “specified sexual activities."

Question:  What types of regulations does LB 443 place on SOBs?
Answer:  Per the proposed committee amendments, LB 443 would do the following:
•    Require SOBs to close between the hours of 12:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m.
•    Prohibit full nudity
•    Enact a “no-touch” rule between patrons and employees of the SOB
•    Prohibit employees of SOBs from knowingly and intentionally touching patrons or the clothing of patrons in a SOB
•    Prohibit persons under the age of 18 from visiting an SOB
•    As of the effective date of the bill, prohibit SOBs from locating within one thousand feet of a child care facility, a private or public school, a public playground, a public recreational facility, a residence, or a place of worship.  

Question:  Why is LB 443 needed?
Answer:  The reasons are numerous.  First, except for a ban on nude dancing at places which serve alcohol, there are no provisions in Nebraska state laws which regulate SOBs.  While some cities have ordinances which deal with the issue, many SOBs locate just outside the zoning authority of municipality to avoid regulation.  
More importantly, there are documented harmful secondary effects caused by SOBs.  That is, the presence of the SOB leads to significant negative impacts on the surrounding community.  These secondary effects are universal, regardless of the size of the community.  

Some senators claim to oppose statewide restrictions because there should be “local control” on such matters.  If the problems caused by SOBs had differing effects depending on the type of community where the SOB was located, that may have some merit.  However, SOBs bring common problems to ANY COMMUNITY where they are located.  Thus, state rules would provide a “floor of protection” for EVERY COMMUNITY in Nebraska.  

Statewide minimum standards have been successfully implemented by many states (Tennessee, Ohio, Arizona, New Jersey, etc.), and this creates protections for communities that would otherwise be caught off guard without regulations or, even if they had them, would not have sufficient resources to defend them against expensive industry lawsuits and attacks. Because of the serious nature of these secondary effects, there is need for a statewide set of standards.

Question: What happens to the women who work in these businesses?
Answer:  
•    Deceived and exploited by promises of big money
•    Experience depression and low self-esteem
•    Contract STDs (75%)
•    Experience drug abuse (95%)
•    Lose custody of their children
•    Leads to other illegal activity including prostitution, tax evasion, drug dealing.
•    Physical abuse

100% of women surveyed in a recent study reported being repeatedly physically abused.  Abuse reported included:
•    Yanked by her hair, arm, or ankle
•    Spit on, sprayed with beer
•    Flicked with cigarettes
•    Pelted with ice, coins, trash, condoms, room keys, pornography, golf balls, cans and bottles from the audience.  
•    Bitten, licked, slapped, punched, and pinched
•    Costumes ripped in an attempt to pull them off
•    Customers frequently grab women’s breasts, buttocks, and genitals
•    Customers attempt and succeed at penetrating strippers vaginally and anally with their fingers, dollar bills, and bottles.
•    Customers expose their penises, rub their penises on women, and masturbate in front of the women.
•    Stripclub owner, managers, and staff expect them to masturbate them and some have raped the women.  
•    Customers, owners, managers, and staff engage in harassing name-calling
•    Against the women’s wishes, customers repeatedly stalk and follow women home, telephone, write letters, and send gifts.
•    Asked to prostitute themselves by customers and sometimes managers.        

Question: What are some of these negative secondary effects?
Answer:  Virtually every study on SOBs concludes that SOBs:
•    Decrease property values in surrounding neighborhoods
•    Contribute to urban blight
•    Increase crimes in the surrounding area, including: property crimes, assaults, and sexual crimes

Question:  Has legislation regulating SOBs survived legal challenges?
Answer:  The U.S. Supreme Court, in two landmark decisions --Young v. American Mini Theaters, Inc., (1976) and Renton v. Playtime Inc. Theater, Inc., (1986) held that because of the particular problems created by SOBs, government can enact time, place, and manner regulations that are designed to protect communities and neighborhoods without suppressing speech activities that are presumed to be protected under the First Amendment.

Question:  Do governments have legitimate interests in regulating SOBs?
Answer:  In Renton and Young, the Court concluded "...that municipalities have a substantial interest in protecting and preserving the quality of life for its community against the adverse secondary effects of SOBs...." - regardless of the size of the community.

Question:  Is the theory of a relationship between SOBs and crime a scientific fact?
Answer:  Pursuant to a criminological theory of crime risk known as the “routine activity theory of hotspots (hotspot theory),” it is a scientific fact that SOBs pose ambient (i.e. surrounding area) crime risks.

Question:  What is the hotspot theory?
Answer:  The theory is the product of three factors:
1.    SOBs draw patrons from a wide geographic area (catchment areas)
2.    These patrons are disproportionately male, open to vice overtures, and are reluctant to report victimizations to the police.  They are “soft targets.”
3.    The high degree of soft targets at these sites attracts predatory criminals.  These criminals lure or lull potential victims.  
Simply put, SOB patrons do not ordinarily live in the neighborhood, but travel to the site.  They are, by and large, male; are open to criminal overtures (including sexual offenses, drug activity, etc.); they carry cash; and most important, when victimized, they are reluctant to involve the police.

Question:   What are off-site SOBs?
Answer:  These are SOBs that sell adult merchandise for off-site use: book, DVD, and novelty stores.  

Question: Are harmful secondary effects associated with off-site SOBs?
Answer:  Off-site SOBs also attract similar “soft-target” patrons.  With regard to off-site SOBs, the hotspot theory has been corroborated by the findings of two recent studies involving Sioux City, Iowa and Montrose, Illinois.  Interestingly, the study found that when an off-site SOB opened in Montrose (a village of 250 people), crime increased dramatically.  Montrose is located between St. Louis and Indianapolis, just off of I-70.  The study concluded that when an SOB opens on an interstate highway off-ramp in a sparsely populated rural community, ambient crime risk rises precipitously, turning the community into a rural “hotspot of predatory crime.”

Question:  Are state regulations of SOBs constitutional?
Answer:  Yes.  EVERY federal appellate case to consider dancer-patron buffers, no-touch rules, hours of operation, and open-booth regulations has upheld them as constitutional.
•    People ex rel. Deters v. Lion’s Den, No. 5-05-0413 (Ill. Ct. App. 2007) (1,000-ft. setback)
•    City of Erie v. Pap’s A.M., 529 U.S. 2000 (nudity prohibition)
•    SOB, Inc. v. County of Benton, 317 F.3d 856 (8th Cir. 2003)
•    Jake’s Ltd., Inc., v. City of Coates, 284 F.3d 884 (8th Cir. 2002) (6-ft. rule)
•    Richland Bookmart, Inc. v. Nichols, 137 F.3d 435 (6th Cir. 1998) (statewide hours)

Question:  Do legislative bodies have to have site-specific specific studies in order to enact regulations?
Answer:  The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that legislative bodies can rely on studies from other communities to justify regulation of SOBs.  In other words, the state of Nebraska can rely on studies from other communities and states to support time restrictions on SOBs -- it does not need specific evidence of local harm in order to withstand constitutional scrutiny.

Return to LB 443 Process