500 feet. That's about 1/10h of a mile. In my neighborhood that would probably cover about half a dozen homes.
A law like that is just a "do something" law which effectively does nothing, but makes the politicians feel good about themselves and gives a false sense to the public that something was done.
The same idiots that passed that law probably passed a bunch of other laws that makes it easy for child predators to evade detection by law enforcement or by concerned parents.
Frankly I think we need a constitutional amendment that states that any legislature that enacts a law must simultaneously repeal an existing law or laws containing the same number of words. So if they pass a law saying sex offenders must live 500 feet from a school, they need to repeal the law that prohibits high school kids from smoking in the restrooms. (Of course the only reason any of us ever did that was because it was illegal, which means that legalizing it would probably go further to stop the practice than keeping it illegal) :-)
I like it. Plus, if we legalized it we could tax it and raise millions for anti-teen smoking campaigns which could never be spent on anything else. Boom, 250,000 jobs just saved or created. You're a genius. :)