Adam & Eve has been fighting a battle to open a store in Nassau County Florida https://adultfyi.com/read.aspx?ID=7641. The fight is turning ugly and in the following editorial, one newspaper editor supports their right to open, noting the waste of taxpayers’ money to fight it.
Florida- I have advice for the Nassau County Commission as it prepares an ordinance restricting adult stores: Don’t make it retroactive.
If the county tries to stop Adam & Eve from opening on A1A, it will be sued and most likely will lose. We cannot afford the waste of taxpayer money.
The warnings from Adam & Eve’s attorneys should be taken seriously. The North Carolina company is serious about its rights. So much so, its founder wrote a book about it.
Philip D. Harvey – who started Adam & Eve 30 years ago and has been quoted as saying he wants his shops to become “the Gap” of adult stores nationwide – is author of The Government vs. Erotica: The Siege of Adam & Eve, published in 2001 by Prometheus Books of Amherst, N.Y.
The book details the company’s successful defenses against federal, state and local governments. From 1986, when 37 armed law enforcement agents entered the mail-order company in Carrboro, N.C., through prosecutions in Utah, Kentucky and Alabama, Adam & Eve has successfully deterred its opponents.
Harvey’s book is a thoughtful look at pornography, sexuality and censorship. He is a forceful advocate for sexual pleasure and the freedom to enjoy it.
He is not afraid to fight for what he believes is right. He notes his company was even more profitable while fighting its legal battles than after they were won, and closes his book with this statement, “I confess, I miss the sounds and smells of battle. We had been shot at, as Winston Churchill put it, without result, and indeed there is nothing quite so exhilarating. The moat around our castle is deep. The drawbridge is up and our archers’ quivers are full of arrows, and no one comes.”
But now Adam & Eve is expanding outside North Carolina, and its first franchised store is in Nassau County. The company is going national, and roadblocks in rural counties are hurdles to be overcome.
I don’t think Nassau County, no matter how many good Christian lawyers donate their time, can beat Harvey in court. He has the resources and the legal precedents to prevail.
Rather, I believe our local governments should focus on laws to restrict future businesses that violate community standards.
I also believe opponents have other avenues to vent their concern. For one, if the store is not patronized by consumers, it will fail. For another, the right of free expression extends to those who would protest outside a business they find of ill repute.
Finally, I believe we should recognize Adam & Eve as a symbolic reflection of what is happening in our community.
We sold our soul to the devil of commerce a long time ago. As Nassau County grows, our community standards inevitably will change.
The best evidence of that is O’Neal Memorial Baptist Church, across the street from the strip mall where Adam & Eve will locate. The pretty little church unfortunately has become a relic of a community virtually destroyed by growth and development along A1A.
We widened the road, encouraged super stores, shopping centers and other commercial activity and now we don’t like what “progress” brings?
The city slickers have come to Nassau County. We, through our business community and governments, invited them. If the garden is spoiled, we can only blame ourselves.
Give the devil his due. He offered up the apple, and we bit.