Jacksonville, N.C- www.jdnews.com- Owners of local adult-themed retail establishments say they are not worried about competition from a national chain set to open in Jacksonville in June.
Adam & Eve, a retailer with 32 franchises across the country, is opening a new location on Wilmington Highway, according to the city planning department and a representative from the corporation. Another adult-themed business, Intimate Bliss, [owned by Greg Sakas] is set to open even sooner on Workshop Drive.
The new establishments will add to the handful of similar businesses already operating within city limits.
According to city ordinances, a business is considered a retail establishment rather than an adult establishment as long as less than 25 percent of the store’s retail space is devoted to items that distinguish or characterize instruments, devices or paraphernalia that have sexual content. Adult establishments can only be located in specifically zoned areas of the city.
Buddy Samples, the owner of Gruntz, an adult-themed retail establishment with three outlets in Onslow County, said he has some advice for adult business entrepreneurs who think Camp Lejeune will shelter their business during the current economic storm.
“I have been here more than 20 years, and I can say business is not what it used to be,” he said. “The thing newcomers need to understand is that just because Jacksonville is full of young Marines doesn’t mean business will always be strong.”
Samples said he’s had to fight for his place in the community.
“When I started, most ‘bookstores’ and ‘massage parlors’ were just storefronts with rooms in the back full of prostitutes,” he said, adding that when the city cleaned up all those places in the 1980s his businesses remained because his stores are legitimate.
“We sell adult DVDs,” he said, adding the adult film business is in decline. “The porn industry is not recession proof. My business is down 60 percent.”
Since opening Risqué Boutique Inc. on Gum Branch Road in June 2008, owner Dawn Dewey said business has been nothing to complain about.
“Business has been pretty good,” she said. “Valentine’s was our best month ever. We have been holding a pretty steady rate as far as steady income. But in February we tripled our income. It was a really good month.”
Dewey said being in a Marine town with repeated deployments has been good for business.
“With the military with this type of store we have them coming and going,” she said. “The women need to buy lingerie when their husbands are coming home and toys for when they are away.”
Dewey said she is confident Adam & Eve and Intimate Bliss will not affect her business too much when they move into town.
“I am hoping that is not going to hurt us because we … we do carry items that Adam & Eve don’t sell. We have a classier setting and I hope it won’t hurt us.”
And while local adult-themed business owners are secure in their place in Jacksonville, Mayor Sammy Phillips said he isn’t keen on any type of adult business.
“I would be very hesitant to say that I welcome that type of business,” he said. “I’m looking more towards a business that will help generate economic development here in Jacksonville.”
Phillips said he does not want to see his city return to the way it was in the “old days of Jacksonville.”
During the 1960s, 1970s, and part of the 1980s there was a “proliferation” of adult businesses in the city, he said.
“I think it doesn’t look good for your community, it doesn’t give a good impression,” he said. “I believe in protecting people’s rights under the First Amendment and that sort of thing, but I want to be able to market my community as being a nice place to live, I don’t want there to be any negatives.”