SCHENECTADY — from www.timesunion.com – The city is starting proceedings to tear down one of its last adult bookstores.

City leaders have said for years they need to raze Another World bookstore and a neighboring gun shop as part of the planned $14 million reconstruction of Erie Boulevard.

Now that the project’s final designs are in place, the City Council tonight will call for a public hearing on the acquisition of the properties from owner Rocky Palmer. The public hearing would take place next month.

Palmer, a well-known local figure who opened his first night club in the 1940s, said he will not sell the buildings to the city. He said the city has tried to remove Another World for years and is manipulating Erie Boulevard’s redesign to justify the demolition. The gun shop that rented space from Palmer has already moved out.

“Am I going to sit down in a chair and go to hell?” Palmer said about not retiring from the adult bookstore business. “I can still go three rounds with the best of them.”

Schenectady Corporation Counsel L. John Van Norden said if Palmer will not negotiate, the city will begin eminent domain proceedings to seize the property for a public purpose. Mayor Brian U. Stratton has pointed to a settlement Palmer signed in 2005 that allowed Palmer to buy property on State Street in exchange for acknowledging that one day the city would attempt to take the Erie Boulevard property by eminent domain.