Tennessee- It’s been a year since Murfreesboro filed a lawsuit to shut down 21 Up Movies & More, but the store is still peddling its thousands of adult videos and other sexual merchandise.
The city filled suit against the video store in February 2007, claiming the store violated zoning ordinances that restrict adult-oriented business to areas zoned for heavy industry.
The store, which sells sexually explicit videos, lingerie and novelty items, opened at 2209 N.W. Broad St. in fall 2006 in an area zoned for commercial highway use.
Karen Staggs, a 54-year-old Murfreesboro grandmother of three, said she’s appalled that that the store still has its doors open.
“They’re breaking the law by being there,” she said. “Frankly, I don’t think those stores have any place here.”
As of this week, no action has happened on the case since May and no date for a trial or hearing has been set.
Murfreesboro city spokesman Chris Shofner said the city does not comment on ongoing litigation.
In May, the store’s owner, Raymond Vincent Bohannon, filed a countersuit against the city, claiming a law restricting adult bookstores is unconstitutional and that even if it were not, his store should be grandfathered in because it opened before the city changed its law.
Around the time the store opened, the Murfreesboro City Council passed a law creating a definition of adults-only bookstores as stores with more than 200 items, 20 percent of stock and trade or 20 percent of revenue coming from items with “principal emphasis on matters depicting, describing or relating to nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement or sadomasochistic abuse.”
Prior to that, the city had regulated adult businesses under an ordinance nearly identical to a Knoxville ordinance that had been struck down by the Tennessee Supreme Court.
Video Culture, a local independent video store on East Main Street that had been cited by the city for stocking more than 200 adult videos in a back room at the store, joined the suit against the city.
The city has since moved to relax its definition of adults-only stores in order to strengthen the law against future legal challenges. It is illegal for a city or county to ban adult materials, though the place and method in which such materials are made available can be regulated.
On Feb. 7, the Murfreesboro City Council voted to eliminate the restriction on 200 or more items, in part because that definition could include many mainstream stores.
That change will require two more votes before becoming law. Even if the change does pass, it is unlikely to affect 21 Up — a store that almost exclusively sells adult materials.
John Phillips, who drives by 21 Up daily on his way to work, said he doesn’t shop there, but he doesn’t have a problem with the business.
“They don’t bother folks,” he said. “If you don’t like what’s in there, you don’t go in.”