Eden, NY- The Town of Eden is hastening to enact legislation to restrict adult video stores, but it might be too late, since one has already opened near Eden Elementary School and the Boys & Girls Club.
The Garden of Eden Lover’s Paradise opened earlier this month in a former car dealership at 8259 Main St., and the owner and his attorney said that the lack of an ordinance was a prime factor in picking Eden.
Even if the town passes legislation now restricting adult uses to industrial areas and prohibiting them near schools and churches, it would be too late because the store would be grandfathered in, said Frank L. Bybel, attorney for store owner Dan Maloney.
“They can restrict (adult-use businesses), but they can’t outlaw them,” Bybel said. “They could pass an ordinance now, and it would not apply.”
Still, Town Supervisor Glenn R. Nellis said a special meeting of the Town Board had been scheduled to call for a public hearing on legislation to restrict adult-use stores to industrial areas.
The legislation was drafted in August but never enacted.
“We put it off because we were in the middle of budget preparations, and then later we were dealing with state budget problems and there was no indication anyone was interested in opening an adult bookstore,” Nellis said.
Nellis said he expects to be criticized for not acting sooner.
“That’s part of the job,” he said.
The location is especially upsetting to many residents, Nellis said.
Scott Henry, town code enforcement officer, said that Maloney’s business lacks the necessary certificate of occupancy. The goal is compliance, Henry said, and as long as the tenant and property owner take steps to obtain the necessary permits, it is unlikely he would try to shut it down.
“The issue with me is not the adult aspect of it but the fact it is a different use from the previous one,” Henry said.
Maloney apparently did not go out of his way to inform people of the intended nature of the store.
Henry said that it was never mentioned, and Donald S. Nowak, who owns the building, said that during their only meeting, Maloney gave him a card indicating he was an antiques dealer.
“Sure he misled me,” Nowak said. “I never would have rented to him if I had known.”
Maloney acknowledged he talked with Henry only in general terms about an unspecified retail business.
Richard Schaefer, principal of the school, called it “highly inappropriate” and a “horrible idea” to have an adult store near not only the school, but the Boys & Girls Club and the site for a proposed playground.
School district officials and a spokesman for the Boys & Girls Club could not be reached to comment.
During a visit by a reporter to the store, Maloney said that he expected get criticism about the location but that it was the only storefront available in Eden.
He said he is trying to keep the business discreet, with plastic sheets covering the windows.
Lingerie will be displayed near the front of the store, he said, and videos and “novelties” will be relegated to the back.
Maloney, 32, who grew up in Eden and worked in an adult video store in Lackawanna for nine years, said that business has been slow but that he expects it to pick up because of publicity. For now, the store is open only evenings, but he plans to eventually be open from 10 a.m. to midnight seven days a week.