SPRINGFIELD, Massachusetts – Mayor Charles V. Ryan today denied a 2008 entertainment license for video booths at the sex-themed Amazing.net store at 486 Bridge St.

Ryan in his five-page decision also said the Police Department should seek criminal complaints for the operation of the store’s 16 booths without a license.

That was in relation to a police sergeant having testified in a hearing on the license application on Thursday that the booths were still being used despite the store having no current license and Ryan having revoked its 2007 entertainment license in November.

Ryan said his denial was based on two factors. One was evidence that the store has kept operating the video booths without a license.

The second factor was that having the video booths previously encouraged “prostitution, assignation or lewdness, sexual assaults and are connected to drug activity …,” he said.

Northampton lawyer Thomas Lesser, representing store owner Capital Video Corp. of Cranston, R.I., did not return a call seeking comment today, but on Thursday said the company would appeal to Hampden Superior Court if Ryan denied the license.

The rest of the store, which sells magazines, videos and sex toys, is permitted to stay open. It has a city business certificate valid until Feb. 15, 2009.

Lesser had argued that nothing unlawful or of a public nuisance had occurred at the store in 2007, Ryan’s November revocation having been based on inspections in 2006.

Also, improvements have been made at the store that include installation of surveillance cameras that scan areas outside the booths and the store’s exterior.