MARSHALL, PA — Right Ascension Inc., the parent company of DVD Empire, Adult DVD Empire and Gay DVD Empire, has quietly conducted business – millions of dollars annually, in fact – for seven years in an industrial park on the outskirts of this suburban Pittsburgh community. Hardly anyone even noticed the company was there.All that changed in September, when Right Ascension approached the Marshall planning commission about more than tripling the size of its office and distribution facilities. Since then, the local community has been embroiled in a sometimes bitter discussion about whether Right Ascension – the entirety of whose “adult-oriented business” occurs in cyberspace – even qualifies to exist where it exists.
According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the proposed expansion would place 43,000 square feet of additional warehouse space next to the existing 17,000-square-foot structure that houses Right Ascension’s Web programmers and designers, customer service agents, shipping personnel and editorial staff. Co-founder John-Michael D’Arcangelo told the planning commission the company likely would employ about 30 additional people post-expansion.
He also told the commission the company would install dark windows, extra screening and an 80-foot swath of trees to shield neighboring residents from the business, even though it has no walk-in traffic.
“It’s a distribution center, period,” D’Arcangelo told the commission, according to the Post-Gazette. “Since we’ve been there, we haven’t had a single incident of someone showing up and trying to walk into the premises. It’s never even happened once, even by happenstance or accidentally.”
Residents of the subdivision abutting the industrial park don’t see things quite the same way. They liken Right Ascension’s strictly online empire to a brick-and-mortar adult bookstore. Among their objections are that city codes prohibit adult-oriented businesses from locating within 600 feet of a home or 3,000 feet of another adult-oriented business, and the new facility will violate the second consideration by being located near the existing Right Ascension complex.
“I want to put a face on this,” resident Alicia Wiesemann told the commission, according to the Post-Gazette. “You will be responsible for putting an adult business 85 feet from my five children. That will be on your conscience…”
For now it looks like things are leaning Right Ascension’s way. On November 6th, the planning commission voted 3-2 (with one abstention) to recommend approval of Right Ascension’s expansion plans. The matter now proceeds to the township’s board of supervisors on December 10th – over the obstreperous objections of residents in the subdivision.
