MEMPHIS, TN and LANSING, MI — It’s tough to run an adult business in some cities these days.Twice in one week a federal judge in Memphis, TN, declined to grant an injunction that would have stopped enforcement of a Shelby County ordinance that is under fire for alleged constitutional abuses.
And in Lansing, MI, residents are petitioning county officials not to grant a special-use permit that would allow the owner of an out-of-business gas station to turn the building into an adult store.
The Tennessee development is part of an ongoing court challenge to have Shelby County’s recently enacted sexually oriented business law struck down as unconstitutional. U.S. Magistrate Thomas Anderson twice has refused to stay enforcement of the county statute until the lawsuit, which is being heard by another judge, has been decided. Anderson based his denial on the granting of an injunction by the trial judge, U.S. District Court Judge Bernice Donald. However, according to attorneys for two Memphis adult bookstores, Donald’s injunction only applies to strip clubs within the ordinance-affected areas, and not to stores. That, said store attorney James Pleasants, leaves his clients out in the cold when it comes to enforcement of the embattled law.
In particular, the bookstore owners object to provisions in the law that would require all employees and owners of adult establishments of any type to apply for work permits and undergo criminal background checks.
In his second denial of the injunction, Anderson wrote, “The court finds that the adverse secondary effects created by adult-oriented establishments that would continue should enforcement of the act be enjoined, balance the public interest in favor of denying the injunction.”
That is particularly irksome to the bookstores, since an injunction was granted for the strip clubs. According to a report filed by an Austin, TX-based consultant hired by local officials to assess the state of adult businesses in Memphis, “Memphis strip clubs he visited were the wildest he had seen in the entire country and flagrantly flouted local ordinances and laws with impunity,” the Memphis Daily News reported. On the other hand, the consultant found “adult bookstores … generally followed the rules, including closing at midnight as required and in many cases abiding by rules that ban doors on private viewing booths,” according to the newspaper.
In Lansing, the law evidently allows an adult store to locate in the abandoned gas station, but local residents won’t.
“It brings the wrong kind of people to the area,” Eagle Township Supervisor David Morris told WILX-TV. “We don’t’ need it; we don’t want it; we’ll fight it all the way.”
So far, Morris has gathered 200 names on a petition to force Clinton County to deny the special-use permit the proposed business needs in order to open.
If the permit is approved, the business would have to surround itself with a wall that prevents passersby from seeing inside the store.
“I don’t care if they build a wall around it or not,” Richard Whiteacre, whose home is near the former gas station, told the television station. “We don’t want it here.”
