Charleston, S.C- When Shirley Jones lived in the Maryville/Ashleyville neighborhood last year, an adult video store on the corner of St. Andrews Boulevard and Sycamore Avenue made her feel uncomfortable during her evening exercise walks.
It's the only adult video store in the Charleston city limits, and the city has been trying to shut it down or force its relocation for years.
Victoria Stewart remembers the days when the building was home to a grocery store and later a furniture store, both of which employed her and served her predominantly black community.
Early Wednesday morning Jones and Stewart were among two dozen people boarding a bus at Emanuel AME Church in West Ashley for a trip to the South Carolina Supreme Court in Columbia. There, they hoped to see the final showdown over the store now known as Videos and Beyond.
The five state Supreme Court justices will consider whether a lower court was correct to uphold Charleston's zoning ordinance. The video store's lawyers argue the ordinance is unconstitutionally vague in its definition of adult businesses.
On the bus, neighborhood residents prayed and later passed around photo albums. One showed children enjoying pony rides at a festival in the community; the other showed protest marches outside the video store previously known as C&C Video and News.
"I just think it's bad for the neighborhood," Stewart said. "I was born and raised here, and I'm 72."
Ralph R. Bentz of West Ashley wasn't on the bus, but he was in the courtroom later in the day. He's the owner of the video store and believes he's been treated unfairly by the city.The city annexed the property he leases in the mid-1990s and in 1999 passed a zoning rule giving any adult video store in Charleston three years to close or relocate to an industrial area at least 1,000 feet from any home, church or school. With no other adult video stores operating in the city, the rule applied only to Bentz's store.
Maryville/Ashleyville residents have held regular protests there, often with signs and bullhorns.
"I applaud them for standing up for what they believe," Bentz said. "I hope they respect my right to stand up for what I believe."
He said he'd be happy to relocate the store but that there are no good sites available that meet the city's zoning rules.
"A suitable location for this type of business has always been in the woods, away from people," said Councilman Wendell Gilliard, who represents the neighborhood. "Let's not sugarcoat it. It's a porn shop."
In a series of hearings, the store's lawyers have argued that it's not, in fact, an adult business.
At a 2002 zoning hearing that set the stage for a court fight, they said just 34 percent of the store's merchandise was "adult material" under city rules. The city scoffed, noting individual sports trading cards and cans of soda were given the same weight as adult videos in the store's calculations.
Also, an undercover police officer reported seeing a sex act in the store's back room, where there are small private booths for viewing movies. He also testified he saw two men enter a booth together.
The video store lost the zoning hearing and an appeal to Circuit Court but was allowed to remain open while appealing the case further. This is familiar territory for Bentz. He operated the Big Jim's adult video stores in North Charleston, which fought that city's zoning rules for five years until losing before the state Supreme Court in 1997.
"We do not want to be classified as an adult business," he said.
The court heard arguments on the case for 40 minutes Wednesday but, as is customary, set no timetable for a ruling.
Charleston Mayor Joe Riley attended the hearing, as did Gilliard, who organized the transportation on the city-owned bus for Maryville/Ashleyville residents. Bentz and his lawyers have complained that the city misused public funds by providing the bus.
H. Louis Sirkin and Charleston lawyer Thomas Goldstein argued for Bentz's company. Sirkin, a Cincinnati lawyer known for defending adult-oriented businesses, said Charleston's ordinance does not set a clear standard.
Chief Justice Jean Toal questioned him on that idea.
"When you go into a place and see sexually explicit films right up there and see places where sexual activity takes place, if that doesn't meet the definition of an adult bookstore, I don't know what does," she told Sirkin.
"A businessman has the right to know when he's within the limits and when he's outside them," Sirkin told the court.
Toal also had some tough questions for the city's lawyer, Timothy Domin. "Don't you need to come up with some kind of percentage," she asked him. "The U.S. Supreme Court has told us states cannot put the kibosh on selling adult material entirely."
Domin said the city's 1999 zoning rule defines adult businesses as those selling "substantial" or "significant" amounts of adult material and that is a valid standard.
The city last year passed an additional rule that says any business that gets 10 percent of its gross revenue from adult material, or devotes 10 percent of its floor space to such material, is an adult business. Bentz's company is challenging that ordinance as well.
With the video store's status unresolved, the Maryville/ Ashleyville residents returned on the bus to the church parking lot Wednesday afternoon.
Community resident Lorraine Bennett said she was glad she went on the trip, and would like to think it made a difference.
"This is where I was born and raised," she said. "I want to keep it nice."
