Virginia- A judge agreed yesterday to hold a full hearing in a lawsuit seeking to close an adult business in North Stafford.
Stafford County Circuit Judge J. Martin Bass said he needed to hear evidence before ruling whether Pheromoans had rights to stay in the Doc Stone Commons shopping center.
A neighboring business, Rappahannock Goodwill Industries, sued shop owners and their landlord in November. The suit claims they are violating the center’s banned-businesses covenant.
Pheromoans’ owners say they didn’t know about the rules before signing their lease and asked that the case be dismissed.
The shop, which sells battery-operated sex toys, lingerie and adult videos, opened in the fall.
It first sparked complaints from some residents in the nearby Perry Farms subdivision and parents at the Anne E. Moncure Elementary School, which sits 30 yards away. County laws, however, said nothing about where such shops could and could not locate at the time.
But the developer of Doc Stone listed 30 banned business types–including flea markets, churches, sex shops and gambling facilities–in a legally binding agreement when the center was built. Each was considered not compatible with the marketplace.
Goodwill’s North Stafford thrift shop now shares a parking lot with Pheromoans. It took legal action to ensure future property owners and their tenants follow that covenant, according to court documents.
Attorney Rachel Goldstein, who represents Pheromoans, said yesterday that the landlord, not her client, should be asked to defend any violations of the shopping center regulations.
Court documents say the covenant was not disclosed during lease negotiations. For that reason, Goldstein argued, Pheromoans is obligated only to the lease, not the covenant or any attorney’s fees Goodwill might incur during litigation.
Goldstein asked the judge to re-examine a 1950s Virginia Supreme Court ruling that said prospective tenants are responsible for researching deed restrictions before signing a lease. The modern commercial market, she said, calls for that burden to be redirected.
“Landlords are certainly in a better position to make them aware of covenants on the land,” she said.
Bass, however, sent the case forward, saying factual matters of the lease agreement–which were not a part yesterday’s preliminary hearing–were imperative to his decision. A date for the full hearing was not set.
Separately, Pheromoans is involved in a civil suit with its landlord, 70 Doc Stone. And two of the store’s owners will be tried under Virginia’s criminal obscenity law in June.