SUBURB UNCOVERS `GROUNDS' FOR BAN

Strip-tease joints aren't welcome in Blue Springs, and the town has laws to prove it.

The Kansas City suburb, population 45,000, enacted stringent regulations two years ago that sent two strip-tease bars packing and have prevented similar businesses from coming in.

Blue Springs' experience could be copied in Cape Girardeau. Cape Girardeau Mayor Al Spradling III said Wednesday the city council ought to consider adopting similar restrictions.

The council Tuesday night granted a liquor license for Regina's House of Dolls, which plans to open a strip-tease bar at 805 Enterprise.

The council had no choice but to grant the license, Spradling said, adding that Regina's could have opened a business without council approval if it served non-alcoholic beverages.

Spradling said the council might adopt regulations like those at Blue Springs that cover nude-dancing establishments regardless of whether they serve alcohol.

Blue Springs Mayor Greg Grounds said he received death threats and was offered a bribe to abandon his city's crackdown on strip-tease places.

But in the end, the city won without violating the constitutional rights of those engaged in such businesses, he said.

Grounds, a practicing attorney, said, "I was acutely aware of what we could or couldn't do."

The preamble to one of the city's new laws states that "drug dealing, prostitution and other social ills accompany public erotic dancing" and that close contact between dancers and customers increases the likelihood of "drug and sex transactions."

Blue Springs tackled the problem in January 1993 when two bars in retail areas began featuring strip-tease dancing, prompting a public outcry.

The council enacted zoning regulations that limit future strip-tease places to an abandoned quarry, a site not served by a road.

"We didn't say they had to be in the bottom of a quarry," Grounds said, but only that the area meets the city's requirements for an adult entertainment zone.

In Blue Springs, strip-tease places must be at least 1,000 feet from each other or any place that serves or sells alcoholic beverages.

The property must be screened with a solid masonry wall, at least 6 feet in height.

But Grounds said the biggest deterrent is a city law that specifically regulates "erotic dancing."

The dancers must remain at least 10 feet from customers, and physical contact between the dancers and customers "which would cause any degree of sexual arousal" is prohibited.

Customers are barred from tipping dancers, eliminating the common practice of customers' stuffing money in the dancers' G-strings.

The regulation applies not only to places serving liquor, but also to juice bars.

"The `no tipping' pretty much puts an end to this, because nobody wants to pay $15 for a coke and stand 10 feet away from somebody in a swim suit," Grounds said.

"Those regulations are usually the death knell for these kinds of activities."

Grounds said the zoning requirements couldn't be applied to the two strip-tease joints that already were operating in early 1993. But the "erotic dancing" measure did apply.

Both places closed in the spring of 1993.

City Attorney Bob McDonald said the first bar closed after the city charged that dancers simulated sexual intercourse in violation of state liquor laws.

The second bar went out of business after being cited for violations of the city's "erotic dancing" law.