MANASSAS, Va. — from www.insidenova.com – Tandis Seyeden said there’s nothing good about having an adult video store and lingerie shop next door to her beauty salon in Cobblestone Business Center on Mathis Avenue.

“Everything is negative. There’s nothing positive. It’s like there’s this dark cloud over there,” Seyeden said of being next to MVC Couples Boutique.

Seyeden recently attended a Manassas City Council meeting to protest the opening of KK’s Temptations in Old Town.

The shop set to open in October will sell adult toys, videos and lingerie.

Seyeden told the council that she’s sure she loses customers because the adult business has its entrance on Breeden Avenue.

She said a number of people come to her salon and never return once they see the store that’s beside her shop.

“About 30 percent of the time they never come back,”Seyeden said.“It’s so embarrassing for me when I have a new client ask me about the video store next door.”

Jim Keens of Keens Insurance said he hasn’t had any problems either, but he doesn’t like the MVC in the neighborhood and sympathizes with Seyeden.

“I don’t know that it’s affected me a whole lot. I just disagree with the philosophy,” said Keens, whose shop is a door or two down from Seyeden’s.

“I’ve seen them go up and try to get in the door beside her shop, then they go over to the next door to hers to ask her where it’s at,” he said. “I’m sure a lot of people who don’t want to be seen near something like that don’t come to her shop because of that.”

Others in the business center at the intersection of Breeden and Mathis avenues have fewer gripes with the couples’ shop, though they understand the concerns of having a similar shop in Old Town.

Brian Snook, who lives in Old Town and works at a business in Cobblestone Center, said he worries about the store Kim Skokan and her daughter, Kristina Skokan, plan to open on Battle Street, but he has no problems with the store on Breeden Avenue.

“I have no issues with them next door. I don’t see any shady people coming or going. It doesn’t bother me, but I think that it’s a little more tucked away than the family environment in Old Town,” Snook said.

Snook said he imagines that the boutique lends to the vacancies in Cobblestone Center, and a store in the historic district will have similar effects.

“That’s my concern in Old Town. Who’s going to want to be next door?” he said.
Terry Ellis, a practice administrator at Bull Run Foot and Ankle Clinic a bit down from the boutique, said the couples store hasn’t caused any problems for her.

“They really do keep to themselves,” she said.

When the store opened about a dozen years ago, the entrance was on Mathis Avenue.
Ellis said tenants in the center protested and MVC cooperated when they first opened and moved their entrance to the Breeden Avenue side of the center.

Ellis said that things were worse in the early days.

“It was not bringing upstanding characters,”she said of the adult store.

Ellis said she too understood the concerns of those in Old Town.

“If they were going in next to me, I’d be furious,” she said.

Still farther down from MVC at Travis Insurance, Paula Whiting said she to has no issues with the adult video store.

“It’s pretty neutral, nothing weird going on,” she said.

Jackie and Tom Berger own Playtime Pools near Octopus Gardens on U.S. 1 in Woodbridge. They said they have no complaints about the store next door that sells adult toys similar to the ones the Skokans will be selling.

“Let’s be perfectly clear. We have absolutely no problems with Octopus Gardens. Period,” Tom Berger said.

“They’ve been here for 37 years and no problems that I know of,” Jackie Berger said. “It’s actually kind of fun to watch and see who goes in.”

At the Coach House Plaza in Dumfries, Maria Aguilar said she definitely has a problem with the MVC Late Night Video, which recently removed the covering from their windows.

“You know something? Mothers, they don’t like it because there used to be a dark window, but they took it out and people have complained about that,” said Aguilar of Unidos Market.
Aguilar said she’s sure she lost business since the window coverings in the adult video store came down.

“Many people, they don’t want to come because of their kids. They don’t want their kids to see that,” she said about window lingerie displays in the MVC windows.

Jose Lara of Tu Casa Restaurant, several doors down from Aguilar’s market, said he doesn’t mind the video store.

“I’ve been here two years, and I’ve had no problem,” he said.

Sherman Vining of Dumfries Marine manages the Coach House property and said he’s never had trouble with the adult video store.

“They put that in there 10 years ago, 12 years ago and I’ve have never had a problem,” Vining said. “The only peculiarity is that I watch their customers park out here and walk over there to the store.”

Brock Price, the owner of Coach House Physical Therapy & Sports Medicine on the other side of the shopping center, would just as soon see the adult business leave.

“I feel like it never should have been here. It’s inappropriate for the community and it devalues the properties around here, especially the businesses,” Price said.

Price is convinced that other businesses have left because of the video store.

“I do know that other businesses have closed and left since they opened,” he said. “I think people feel unsafe coming in a place where adult places like this are running.”

Still, he’s had no run-ins with the video store.

“There’s been no contention between me and them personally,” he said.

Shannon Biggs, the owner of 10 MVC stores in the area including one in Old Town Alexandria, said the many of the products she sells can be had at other outlets.

“You can go to Victoria’s Secret and see just about the same thing as far as lingerie and so forth,” Biggs said.“Walgreen’s sells personal massage units on their websites. Giant sells lubricants and condoms, so having a store that just specializes for adults, couples and women the way we do is fulfilling a need in the community.”

Biggs said her years of experience in the business show her that people shouldn’t be afraid of adult stores.

“There’s no threat. We’ve been in business 20 years. There’s no rank pervert stalking women in the parking lot. That’s just hype. It’s just untrue. There’s no secondary adverse effects,” Biggs said.