Wisconson- Oshkosh police have been ratcheting up enforcement efforts at an adult video store that has a history of customers involved in lewd sexual behavior.
Pure Pleasure II, one of the few adult stores in the area that has booths for viewing pornography, has been drawing men seeking sex from Oshkosh and around the state, police say.
The sexual activity has been taking place in the open at the store at 1212 Oshkosh Ave., as well as in the bathrooms at neighboring Rainbow Park, Oshkosh Police Detective Paul Frey said.
The Oshkosh Police Department has been conducting undercover details at Pure Pleasure II and Rainbow Park in an effort to cut down on the inappropriate sexual activity taking place.
The most recent round of undercover operation has been going on for about six months and Frey said dozens of men have been arrested for soliciting sex. In his 15 years with the department, Frey said he could not recall ever conducting a detail where no arrests were made.
“We could literally go in there every single day and make an arrest,” Frey said. “It’s that prevalent.”
The person who answered the phone at Pure Pleasure II Friday declined to comment.
Oshkosh Police Chief Scott Greuel said the activity at Pure Pleasure II has been a problem for a number of years. While the city’s nuisance ordinance is a tool the department could use to remedying the problem, Greuel said the department has not used it in part because the violations have been brought to light as a result of a proactive police detail, rather that citizen complaints.
The ordinance, which is typically triggered by citizen complaints, broadly defines a nuisance to include criminal activity, noise problems and other recurring activities that “substantially annoy, injure or endanger the comfort, health, repose or safety of the public.” It allows authorities to fine business operators who fail to address ongoing issues.
Greuel said the work the department has done so far has been a good step.
“I think any time we take a proactive measure to make any of our parks and places people visit safer, I think that is a good thing,” Greuel said. “We certainly don’t want to get a reputation as a place to come to for this type of unlawful behavior.”
However, the business is already drawing people to the area. While some of the individuals who have been arrested reside in Oshkosh, Frey said others have been from Forest Junction, Seymour and Butternut in Wisconsin as well as Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
Officers have observed men in the booths in the backroom of Pure Pleasure who have been watching videos, masturbating in plain view and inviting others to join them in sexual activity. Sometimes that behavior has spilled over into the bathroom areas at Rainbow Park, Frey said.
While there are other adult book and video stores in town, Frey said the department does not have the same problems at those businesses. He said the booths at Pure Pleasure II might be the reason why the activity is occurring at Pure Pleasure II.
“I don’t know how many other cities allow the booths,” Frey said. “Any of the adult stores that we have that don’t have the booths, we don’t have a problem. It’s the booths that bring the lewd activity in.”
The details have helped address some of the problems at Pure Pleasure II, but Frey said it can not completely solve the problem.
“If they really wanted to stop it, the stores would have to remove the booths,” Frey said. “If you took the booths out of Pure Pleasure, there would be no more of the lewd activity going on.”