Buffalo- They’re not your dirty old man bookstores anymore.

The adult stores of the past were typically small, dark and grimy, and were owned by the guy at the door selling sleazy magazines or videos.

Today they’re adult entertainment centers, and they are as big as warehouses, filled with videos, games, sex toys and slinky apparel. Police and community officials still keep a watchful eye on it all, quick to step in if owners cross the line into illegal territory.

But sex stores are a booming business. The proof is in the numbers.

In the early 1990s, no more than 10 small sex shops operated in the Buffalo Niagara region. Today, at least 21 are in business – half of them owned by a local chain of X-rated stores.

Thousands of square feet in size, some feature mini-movie theaters, “buddy rooms” and sex-related accessories.

And the competition is fierce for the millions of dollars spent on smut.

The locally owned chain of 11 adult entertainment centers is trying to domi

nate the smaller, more traditional shops. “They come in and pump up these superstores. It’s like the Wal-Mart of the adult industry,” said Chuck Sinclair, an adult store operator who recently quit the business, in part, because of fierce competition.

The growth has prompted local officials to ask if the region has hit its pornography saturation point.

Buffalo is drafting a licensing ordinance for adult stores, and Amherst is reviewing its zoning ordinance.

Why the big growth?

Easy access to sexually explicit material and changing attitudes toward sexuality, according to psychiatrists, lawyers and porn businessmen.

“Marketing to women is tending to mainstream a traditionally male business,” said Dr. Adam Keller Ashton, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University at Buffalo. “Plastic surgery, more revealing clothing and behavioral changes, especially among young women, is blurring the line between traditional entertainment and intimate entertainment.”

Buffalo Vice Detective David Sugg has witnessed firsthand the changing faces of customers. “You see couples going in and buying their toys,” Sugg said. “Society must be changing. Before you wouldn’t see a male and female walking into these stores.”

Adult retailers also have come up with more inventive ways to attract walk-in traffic.

For customers who fear their neighbors might see them walking into a dirty bookstore, the owners of the local chain of adult stores – David Scrivani and Edward Davis – temporarily solved that problem at their new superstores on Elmwood Avenue.

Discreet indoor parking with a rear entrance was offered until city inspectors recently halted the arrangement because it violated building codes.

This sprawling store, Video Liquidators III, complete with a movie theater, opened in a 23,000-square-foot warehouse just down the block from a long-established smaller adult store at Elmwood and Hertel avenues.

“It’s like anything else. Home Depot moves into town, and the local hardware store closes,” said Buffalo attorney Paul J. Cambria Jr., one of the country’s top adult entertainment lawyers.

The adult industry, Cambria said, generates $11 billion in sales annually and includes big-time players from Hustler magazine owner Larry Flynt, who is opening a chain of high-end adult stores, to housewives who mimic the Tupperware house party format to sell lingerie and adult toys.

Real estate records show that Scrivani and Davis own close to $1 million in adult properties in the region. They declined to be interviewed.

But in their effort to corner the local market on adult entertainment, Scrivani and Davis are fearless.

While Chuck Sinclair was selling Temptation Video on Seneca Street at Bailey Avenue, a company affiliated with Scrivani and Davis was completing the $230,000 purchase of a 10,000-square-foot warehouse directly across the street.

Buffalo’s zoning ordinance prohibiting the opening of a new adult store within 750 feet of an existing store was not an obstacle.

Scrivani found a loophole in the ordinance, city officials said. When he opens the store, less than 10 percent of its floor space will be devoted to adult material. He may follow the format of his other stores, where he sells mainstream videos and magazines in addition to adult materials.

The city, according to David Krug of the Department of Permits and Inspection Services, cannot stop a retailer from selling adult material if it amounts to less than 10 percent of the merchandise.

And when the new Seneca Street store opens, it will be less than a mile from an adult store-movie theater Scrivani and Davis already operate on Clinton Street.

Adding further proof that the adult industry is flush with cash, Sinclair was able to sell his store to an out-of-state chain known as Pandora’s Boxxx. Like Sinclair, the new owners do not have a movie theater or peep shows.

Pandora’s Boxxx is the same chain that had operated a store on Niagara Falls Boulevard in Amherst before losing its lease. Scrivani and Davis now run a store at that location.

At Great American News Co. on Niagara Street in Black Rock, Scrivani’s buddy rooms have caught the attention of law enforcement officials.

“They’re pushing the limit,” said Detective Sugg.

The rooms are adult movie-viewing booths separated by an opaque glass that clears by pressing a button, if individuals in two booths want to look at each other.

Arturo Salas, the Buffalo Police Department’s chief of staff and former commander of the Narcotics and Vice Squad, said he checked with city lawyers and was told that there was nothing illegal about the noncontact buddy rooms.

But when Sugg visited the theater inside the Video Liquidators III superstore in the 1700 block of Elmwood Avenue, he arrested a partially dressed man who allegedly committed an indecent act in front of him, the detective said.

Erie County District Attorney Frank J. Clark said it is important for authorities to be vigilant in monitoring activities at adult entertainment businesses.

“The line between permissible conduct can quickly drift into unlawful conduct,” he said.

Martin J. Harrington spent 17 years of his career with the Buffalo Police Department investigating vice before moving to Florida. The explosion of putting multiple adult entertainments under one roof, he says, boils down to money. “Anything to make a buck. There’s more sex going on in the audience than on the movie screen,” Harrington said.

But he did not criticize everyone in the business. Harrington called Sinclair a store owner “with a conscience.” That stems from the time Sinclair had a prostitute arrested. She had entered his former store with a toddler in a stroller, looking for business.

As for money, there’s no doubt adult entertainment is lucrative. Scrivani lives in a $559,000 home in Clarence. His business associates describe him as a devoted family man.

Amherst Building Commissioner Thomas C. Ketchum says a review of the town zoning ordinance is under way to balance the businesses’ First Amendment rights and the town’s goal of controlling the proliferation of adult stores. In Buffalo, a proposal to license adult stores would require the owners to pass a criminal background check and prove they have complied with municipal codes.