ABILENE, Kan. – A Wichita judge has dismissed 10 misdemeanor complaints against an adult video and novelty store, saying the state’s obscenity laws are flawed.

Dickinson County Attorney Keith Hoffman had filed the charges in early April against the Lion’s Den Adult Superstore along Interstate 70, about three miles east of Abilene. The complaint accused the store of illegally promoting obscenity by selling sexual devices.

In his ruling Wednesday, Kansas Senior Judge Robert Innes noted that the state Supreme Court ruled in 1990 that state law forbids the Legislature from declaring a device obscene solely on the basis that it relates to human sexuality.

The law later was changed to address the court’s ruling, but Innes said language remained in the law that allowed the 1990 case, State v. Hughes, to be overturned.

“The claim by the defendant that most troubles me is the claim that the statute continues to have the language in it that was, in a sense, condemned by the court in Hughes,” Innes said. “Be it substantive or procedural, my view is that (the statute) is unconstitutional.”

The Lion’s Den, which opened in September 2003 in a renovated former Stuckey’s restaurant, has been the focus of an intense battle between the store and a community group that has been trying to get it closed down.

At times members of the group, Citizens For Strengthening Community Virtues, have camped out at the store around the clock, waving signs and warning truckers that their bosses would be notified if they stopped there.

In April 2004, a Dickinson County grand jury returned a 29-count indictment alleging the store promoted obscenity. That was thrown out earlier this year by Innes because petitions that were presented to convene the grand jury were improperly filled out.

In July, the Lion’s Den filed a federal lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kan., claiming that an ordinance adopted by the County Commission regulating sexually oriented businesses is unconstitutional.