CAMERON - Strippers cannot take it all off, nor will any type of lewd conduct, sexual encounter centers, nude models or escort services be tolerated when adult-style entertainment businesses eventually are unveiled in rural Milam County.

While Milam County’s 37-pages of guidelines for managing sexually oriented commerce in unincorporated areas may not constitute the “100 percent strongest possible” of regulations, “it’s a good start,” said Dr. Frank Summers, Milam County judge, adding that the Commissioners Court may impose stricter rules in the future as needed.

Commissioners on Monday adopted the county’s first set of rules governing sexually oriented businesses after reviewing and choosing regulations ordained by area counties, including Bell County.

A committee that devised the rules included the assistant county attorney and sheriff. The county began work in the summer, after a caller made inquiries about sexually oriented business rules and mentioned plans to establish “a gentlemen’s club” near Rockdale.

“We are ahead of the game before any businesses come in,” Summers said. “We are going to have something they will have to follow.”

Sheriff David E. Greene said, “It’s not something I want to see in the county, but I don’t see that we have any choice.”

Sheriff’s department personnel will have “lots of extra paperwork” from applications, revocations, and inspections, Greene said, adding that the permit process is very public. Signs must be posted on the property advising the public that the lot will be developed for a sexually oriented business.

The Rev. Luther Shelander, pastor of Mount Zion Baptist Church near Rockdale, told the Commissioners Court, Monday that studies and sex crime statistics prove that adult businesses “are only store fronts for other illegal activity.”

“There is a clear line between right and wrong,” Shelander said. “There is a clear line between good and evil. It’s clear in this case that there is no meaningful or added value to our communities or county with this type of business, only added headache and heartache, more crime activity, more duties for law enforcement personnel and into our overburdened court system.”

The pastor encouraged the court to “restrict and regulate” adult oriented commerce “to the full extent of the law.”

Summers agreed, saying that study areas in Detroit, Los Angeles and Beaumont show an average of 43 percent more property crimes, 4 percent more violent crimes and 500 percent more sex crimes near concentrations of adult entertainment establishments.

Milam County now requires adult business entrepreneurs to file an application with the sheriff’s department, pay a $1,000 non-refundable application fee, participate in public hearings and allow the sheriff and deputies to make regular on-premises inspections. The county limit advertising and billboards, signs and operating hours.

Additionally, county rules prohibit adult businesses that offer services beyond shows featuring scantily clad women entertainers, such as adult motels, and the exhibition of sexually explicit films or videos.

Adult businesses must be more than 1,000 feet from a school or child care facility, church or place of religious worship, a dwelling, hospital, nursing facility, rest home or similar operation, public building, public park, other sex-oriented business or penal institution.

When first confronted with the prospect of adult businesses, discussions in the Commissioners Court started with the concept, “Let’s see how we can shut it out” and deliberations included “putting in an application fee too high that nobody could do it, but that’s unconstitutional,” Summers said.