Wichita- Seven people were arrested during a investigation involving adult video and bookstores, including two store employees, police said Wednesday.
Ten officers with the Wichita Police Department Patrol South Bureau conducted the assignment Tuesday in response to neighborhood complaints, police said.
The complaints involved activities at stores in the 5800 block of South Broadway and the 2500 block of South Seneca, said Capt. John Speer of Patrol South.
Police declined to elaborate on the nature of the complaints.
“We sent officers in plain clothes, and they identified violations with the city ordinance while the officers were in there,” Speer said.
The violations included sodomy, lewd and lascivious conduct and obstructing officers.
Four people were arrested at the Circle Cinema store at 2570 S. Seneca, and three were arrested at the Adult Superstore at 5858 S. Broadway.
One employee at each business was among those arrested. Each was booked on suspicion of promoting obscenity and obstructing officers.
All were taken to the Sedgwick County Jail.
Susie Beatty, 46, and her daughter, Jessica Tull, 29, live a block from the Adult Superstore. They say they are part of the neighborhood complaint.
“I just don’t think it should be in a residential area,” Beatty said.
Tull, who has three children, said area parents are concerned about possible child abductions and rapes. She said her oldest daughter was once followed by a person in a car.
Beatty and Tull say they also are concerned that the store is next to Christian Chapel Foursquare Church, 5828 S. Broadway
They say they don’t like to live in fear and keep their children inside after dark, but they aren’t hopeful anything will change.
“It’s a problem that’s always going to be there,” Beatty said. “Before they came in, we were a sleepy community. They turned us into a prison community, basically.”
