Bill Would Increase Penalties For Prostitution Within 1,000 Feet Of A Church, State Building

A bill by State Sen. Jane Nelson (R-Flower Mound) would increase the penalties for prostitution if a prostitute plied her trade within 1,000 feet of a church, the property of a state agency or political subdivision, a public or private school, a licensed daycare, a liquor store or establishment serving liquor, or a sexually oriented business. 

Under the bill, SB 528, the penalty for prostitution within 1,000 feet of a “protected premises” would increase from a Class B misdemeanor to a Class B misdemeanor with a minimum term of confinement in jail of 90 days. Repeat offenders would also be punished with stiffer penalties including more jail time. 

Let’s be honest: this is a pretty stupid bill.

Prostitution is prostitution, period. We could see, perhaps, increasing the penalty for prostitution in front of a school, but churches, government buildings, liquor stores and sexually oriented businesses neither require nor deserve any special status when it comes to where the trade of prostitution is conducted. 

I’m not even sure it would be constitutional to prohibit prostitution within 1,000 feet of a church. “Prostitution” isn’t exactly a recognized “business” under the Texas Business & Commerce Code; it is simply one of hundreds of activities deemed illegal by the Texas Penal Code or other laws. You can alter zoning laws to determine where people can legally operate a business, but to make it “more illegal” to do something that is already illegal within a specific proximity of a church or liquor store is just moronic. Again, protecting school zones from prostitution we can see–it has already been done with “Drug Free/Gun Free School Zones” (neither of which have actually done anything to deter criminal activity)–but the rest is just an overzealous approach to stopping the world’s oldest profession. 

To add insult to injury, it looks like Nelson didn’t actually read the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code before filing a bill that would hike the penalty for any one who prostitutes themselves within 1,000 feet of  ”the premises of the holder of a license or permit issued under Title 3, Alcoholic Beverage Code.” Do you have any idea what is permitted under Title 3 of the Alcoholic Beverage Code? Everything from wineries to hotels with permits to have mini-bars in rooms: Breweries, distillers and rectifiers, wholesalers, wine bottlers, package stores, local distributors, wine and beer retailers, any establishment with a mixed beverage permit, any fair or carnival with a daily temporary mixed beverage permit, caterers or locations where caters with caterer’s permits are catering, private clubs, airlines with an airline beverage permit, manufacturers, industrial permits, transporters that transport alcoholic beverages, places with permits to store alcoholic beverages, passenger trains with permits, market research permits, charitable auctions, importers and more with permits under Title 3 could become “protected premises.”

In layman’s terms, that means a prostitute plying her trade anywhere from in front of a Wal-Mart with a permit to sell wine and beer to an Applebee’s to a mini-storage warehouse where someone has a Title 3 storage permit is subject to the stiffer penalties. 

We think prostitution is as bad as the next person, but this bill is just poor public policy. Evidently, it wasn’t even well-thought-out (seriously: prostitution in front of an Outback steakhouse has a stiffer penalty than prostitution in front of a McDonalds because one serves booze? Seriously?).

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