If you live in Ohio, vote today. There is a bill (Senate Bill #16, also known as "Issue 1") on the ballot to make a law that will horrendously restrict adult bookstores, among other things.
If the Bill is passed by majority vote, the following changes to Ohio state law will occur:
* Requiring the State of Ohio to compensate local governments (townships, cities and villages) who enforce local laws regulating adult entertainment establishments when those local laws have been adopted with the guidance of the Ohio Attorney General and when those laws are found unconstitutional or invalid by a court, with certain exceptions for payment of such compensation,
* Prohibiting sexually oriented businesses from being open for business between midnight and 6 a.m., except that sexually oriented businesses with a liquor permit may remain open until the hours specified in the permit if they do not conduct, offer, or allow, sexually oriented entertainment activity in which the performers appear nude
* Prohibiting customers and employees of sexually oriented businesses who are not immediate family members from touching each other while on the premises of that business and while the employee is nude or seminude, and
* Creating misdemeanor criminal offenses relating to hours of operation and for customers and employees who violate the no touch provisions of the law, setting the penalty at a fourth degree misdemeanor, except when the touching is in specified anatomical areas, in which case, the penalty is a first degree misdemeanor.
What does this mean? Well, from SmartVoter.org
* Adult businesses -- which include sexually oriented book and video stores as well as X-rated theaters and strip clubs -- must close between midnight and 6 a.m. Clubs with liquor licenses could remain open and serve until the hours specified in the liquor permit, but all fully nude entertainment must end at midnight.
* Customers of such businesses will be prohibited from touching performers and their clothing, and performers will be prohibited from touching customers and their fellow performers.
* Customers and performers who violate the "no touch" provisions of the law will be guilty of a misdemeanor criminal offense.
* The state will pay local governments' costs for lawsuits arising from this law under certain conditions, for example, if a local ordinance drafted with the guidance of the Ohio Attorney General is declared unconstitutional.
What that means is that, if I want to go buy some fuzzy handcuffs or a copy of Taboo on my lunch break (usually from 3:30am to 4:30am), I can't. Now, I have no problem with an adult store, or any store, deciding to have hours when they are open and hours when they are closed. But to have the government come down and say "No, you must close at midnight!" is, in my opinion, a ridiculous level of government interference with private business. It's also discriminatory towards those of us that work odd hours. I work from 11:30pm to 8:30am. My wife works from 7pm to 7am. This bill is the equivalent of telling us that, on our few days that we both have off, we legally can't go to the store in the middle of our day. It'd be like telling a day-shift person that they can't go buy a book at 3pm on Saturday, and making it law. Absurd!
And then there's the strip club issue. It's harder to defend, especially as most states already have pretty draconian no-touchy laws. In fact, most of the arguments for "Issue 1" completely avoid the adult bookstore side of the issue. They just snuck that part in so they could get some more mileage out of their efforts at legislating morality. Instead they focus on bad-mouthing the strip clubs. Lot of different sides to the issue, but in my opinion, what it comes down to is free expression and personal privacy. I'm not a fan in general of laws restricting sexual activity between consenting adults, and this is just another facet of that.
But even if you think they've got a point with the strip clubs, they are overreaching by tossing the bookstores into the bill. It's a bad (actually, terrible) bill as written, and as such it should be soundly rejected.
Of course, it won't, because the people who'd vote against it by and large (with me being at least one exception) won't bother voting, and it's the stay at home religious moms who will be sure to hit the polls. I'm sure the bill will be passed, and probably by a wide margin. And then it's a case of taking it to the courts, where it probably won't fare much better.
UPDATE:
Well fuck
Issue One Votes Will Not Be Counted
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- When Miami Valley voters go to the polls Tuesday they will see a proposed challenge to Ohio’s "Stripper Law" on the ballot, even though votes for it will not be counted.
Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner sent a directive to all 88 county boards of election Thursday, telling them that State Issue No. 1 has been ruled ineligible for the ballot by the Ohio Supreme Court.
The court ruled that supporters of the referendum did not have enough petition signatures to place the issue on the ballot.
The court ruling came too late for boards to remove the issue from the electronic ballots or printed materials at polling places.
In response, Brunner has directed county boards of election to post signs in each polling place that read:
"Special Notice To Voters: Votes cast for State Issue 1 will not be counted. The petition proposing the referendum on Am. Sub. 16 did not contain a sufficient number of valid signatures in order to have votes counted for this issue."
Issue No. 1 was proposed by opponents of the new state law regulating strip clubs.
The law prohibits strip club employees from touching customers and outlaws nude dancing after midnight.
Club owners vowed to continue fighting the new law. A hearing on a constitutional challenge is pending in federal court.
The appearance of an issue on the statewide ballot after it is ruled ineligible is rare, although not unprecedented. The last time it happened was in November 2006.
I sure didn't see it posted anywhere.