Exotic Illusions to Open in Scotts County, Tn

GATE CITY, Tennessee - The owner of a Bristol-based adult novelty and video store on Monday said he is considering opening a business in Scott County.

Exotic Illusions owner Dan Bickley talked to the Times-News about his plans just hours after county government leaders met in special session to adopt an emergency ordinance regulating sexually oriented businesses for a 60-day period.

The Scott County Board of Supervisors met at the urging of County Attorney Dean Foster, who said he received a phone call last week from "an unidentified person" who asked about the existence of zoning ordinances in the county that would prohibit that kind of sexually oriented business.

Although Gate City, Dungannon and other towns in the county have zoning, Scott County does not have any type of zoning designation for land or business use.

Foster acknowledged after checking phone records he suspected the caller was Bickley, who owns two other adult stores, one in Montgomery County in Blacksburg and another in West Virginia.

"(The opening of these stores) has touched off a flurry of towns and cities all along the Interstate 81 corridor adopting or revising their sexually oriented business ordinance," said Foster.

"I think it is fair to say that the attraction for (Scott County) is the fact that we don't have zoning, and the state line area, which is near the end of an interstate and is a high-traffic area.

"The First Amendment protects the content that is the videos, books and other items inside a store like this. The Supreme Court has allowed localities to address the secondary effects these business, which includes sexual activity, prostitution and sexually transmitted diseases," said Foster.

Basing his argument on the free speech issue in the First Amendment, Foster said Scott County can reasonably regulate the time and manner of the commercial free speech.

But where the commercial free speech takes place is essentially out of the county's hands.

"We can regulate the time by the hours of operation in our ordinance. Manner can be controlled by these open viewing booths, which must be illuminated and contain no holes. Location is where we have no jurisdiction because we have no zoning, so two out of three is what we have to work with," he said.

Foster said he crafted Scott County's ordinance - minus any references to zoning and special use permits - to mirror laws recently adopted all along the Interstate 81 corridor, including criminal background checks prior to final business license issuance, open and visibly lighted viewing booths, no minors on the premises during business hours, and the hours of operation for such a business.

Bickley says he did obtain a copy of Gate City's zoning ordinance for review, and he is looking at possible sites for a shop in the vicinity of Gate City or Weber City.

"I am looking at locating somewhere down there, whether it's in Gate City, Weber City, Kingsport, Scott County or Sullivan County. Wherever it is at, we will obviously adhere to the regulations in place," he said.

"The location, obviously, is great because you could pull from Kingsport, which is a busy area, and from a lot of little rural places, too, like Dungannon, Hilton and others.

"My others stores are doing very well financially. When the store opened in Bristol, the mayor at that time said the store would last 90 days because there wasn't a demand for these types of books and videos and novelties. Next month will be our one-year anniversary."

Since that opening last April, which was done before the city of Bristol, Va., could amend its adult business ordinance, according to Foster, Bickley said there has only been one incident where police had to be called in.

In January, a Glade Spring man was arrested after allegedly exposing himself through one of the holes in a viewing booth in the shop, according to Bickley.

Bickley said any business owner who abides by the regulations of a locality should be able to sell their wares no matter what.

"You may not drink alcohol, but you cannot tell anyone to not go into the liquor store. You do not have the right. The same goes for our business," he said.

"It falls under the constitutional rights and privileges of the freedoms that we have. There is always going to be objections to something like that opening in an area. It's like if someone wants to put a prison in the county and the people don't want it there, but they do want someplace to put the prisoners."

He also said Scott County's unwillingness to have an adult-oriented business is a case of NIMBY.

"They are saying 'not in my back yard,' " said Bickley.

The supervisors also voted to advertise the emergency ordinance for public hearing, which they have scheduled for their meeting in May.