By Greg Grisolano

ggrisolano@joplinglobe.com

CARTHAGE, Mo. — The Jasper County commissioners are taking steps to put a proposed cabaret tax before voters during the general election in November.

Presiding Commissioner John Bartosh said Thursday after the commission’s regular meeting that the ballot language is expected to be completed by Monday.

“The measure would tax up to 10 percent of the gross-sales receipts,” Bartosh said. “It would help pay for some of what it would cost the county to police those businesses.”

Bartosh said the tax is being considered as a means of deterring sexually oriented businesses from opening in Jasper County. Residents of the eastern part of the county have been protesting the opening of Vegas Video, an adult-video store, on County Road 100, just south of Interstate 44. It initially was going to be a juice bar featuring seminude dancing.

“All we’re going to do is just try and discourage them from coming,” Bartosh said.

Lawrence County voters approved a similar measure by a wide margin in April. Lawrence County commissioners at that time said the measure was implemented to deter adult businesses from opening in Lawrence County, if they had been rebuffed in Jasper County.

But an attorney representing the owner of Vegas Video said the county may be overstepping its bounds by trying to tax his client “out of business.”

“You can’t tax a business for the purpose of making it unable to do business,” said Bill Fleischaker, the attorney for Vegas Video owner Ernest Doyon, of Wichita, Kan. “If that’s the purpose (of the tax), we can probably get it thrown out, and get the county to pay for some attorney’s fees and damages. We’ll just have to deal with that when it happens.”

Neighbors of the Vegas Video location organized and appealed to the commission when plans for the site included a juice bar with seminude dancing. In response, the commission adopted a new adult-cabaret ordinance that sets a number of regulations, and requires criminal and health checks of workers. The juice-bar plan was scrapped in favor of a standard bar.

Doyon, according to Fleischaker, still plans to open another business at the location, but just what it will be was not specified Thursday. Fleischaker did say that it would not come under the state regulation pertaining strictly to adult cabarets.

John Putnam, an organizer of the residents’ group, Citizens for a Decent Environment, said he is pleased that the issue is still a commission focus.

“We’re glad for any kind of deterrent to keep this filth out of our neighborhood,” he said. “If the tax does show up on the ballot, and ordinances get passed that improve the health of the community, we’ll be out there trying to raise awareness.”