Missouri Revised Statutes Title XXXVIII. Crimes and Punishment; Peace Officers and Public Defenders § 573.525. Purpose--findings

(1) Sexually oriented businesses, as a category of commercial enterprises, are associated with a wide variety of adverse secondary effects, including but not limited to personal and property crimes, prostitution, potential spread of disease, lewdness, public indecency, obscenity, illicit drug use and drug trafficking, negative impacts on surrounding properties, urban blight, litter, and sexual assault and exploitation;

(2) Sexually oriented businesses should be separated from sensitive land uses to minimize the impact of their secondary effects upon such uses, and should be separated from other sexually oriented businesses, to minimize the secondary effects associated with such uses and to prevent an unnecessary concentration of sexually oriented businesses in one area;

(3) Each of the foregoing negative secondary effects constitutes a harm which the state has a substantial interest in preventing or abating, or both. Such substantial government interest in preventing secondary effects, which is the state's rationale for sections 573.525 to 573.537, exists independent of any comparative analysis between sexually oriented and nonsexually oriented businesses. Additionally, the state's interest in regulating sexually oriented businesses extends to preventing future secondary effects of current or future sexually oriented businesses that may locate in the state.