New Bern, North Carolina- If you’ve seen 300, you can appreciate the fact that next week Greg Sakas dines in hell.
Meanwhile, the adult industry visits Florida this weekend for Exxxotica Miami. Last weekend there was more partying at Adultcon. This coming week will be the XRCO Awards and probably more birthday parties even before Thursday and loads of release parties probably later this month. A lot of money’s going to be spent. But Greg Sakas isn’t seeing any of it.
Who’s Greg Sakas, you ask? See, you’ve already forgotten. www.adultfyi.com/read.php?ID=21571.
Sakas is an adult store owner in North Carolina who got raided by the cops in January and now faces the prospect of losing his business. But Sakas is a bristly guy with a drawl and I’ve talked to him enough times to draw the conclusion about the bristly part. To hear him, Sakas is going to fight with or without the help of the adult industry. So far it’s been without the help. Sakas says, yeah, he’s gotten some promises from companies but mostly no deliveries.
“A lot of people are saying they’re with us, but we still haven’t got nothing,” he says. “But that’s part of the industry isn’t it? A lot of people say they’re concerned but that’s all they are. They’re concerned.”
United Video was a company that followed through on its word and sent him a $1,000 worth of product. There were a couple of others. CFC Media has sent him around $1200 worth of movies. Free Speech keeps telling Sakas they’re “working on some stuff.”
Sakas is also counting on an article appearing in the April issue of AVN about his First Amendment fight. He hopes maybe people will see that and get worked up into a lather. I tell Sakas, yeah, worked into a lather for the next party.
In the meantime, Sakas is filing a lawsuit against the city of New Bern, North Carolina where one of his stores is located. He wants the product back which the police illegally confiscated. Along with all his paperwork and everything else they could take out of the store.
And Sakas thinks he’ll have to file a second one against the city of Roanoake Rapids. The gentry in Roanoake Rapids have told Sakas pretty much that he’s in violation of city ordinances and would like to see him quietly move to another location.
Sakas is supposed to meet with the mayor of that city along with the developmental council. But he doesn’t see to much success coming out of that pow-wow.
So far Sakas has met with the assistant planning director there. The conversation was about penises and genitalia which sounds like a topic you’d discuss with an assistant planning director. Sakas was told he can’t have any “instruments” in the store because of the state law. Even if it says “massage” on the box it’s still considered an instrument.
So Sakas goes what the hey- Wal-mart sells this stuff as massagers. He gets the knuckle brained response that everyone knows for what purpose they’re using these instruments when they come to Sakas’ store. Sakas wonders if he’s supposed to take a poll among his customers to see how they’re using the stuff.
When that argument went nowhere, the assistant planning director played the church card and told Sakas he was too close to them and needed to find another location. Sakas said tell me where. The asssistant planning director told him it wasn’t his job to find him one. Sakas said, yeah, your job is to shut me down.
Sakas’ partner would rather see him just fold up the tent. But Sakas doesn’t want to do that.
“The only reason we haven’t is because of me,” says Sakas.
“Am I fighting for me alone?” he asks. “I guess that’s apparent what we’re doing. If I don’t win this, do you think the rest of these people are going to be staying in business? I think everybody in North Carolina is going to be left wide open. Do I have a choice? I guess I really don’t have a choice. I can close up and walk away from it and let them fight their own battles. Maybe if some other people went down the tubes, they’d start getting smart. It comes down to the fact that this is a taboo type of industry and when you’ve got individuals that are having problems- Alabama is one of them- everybody in Alabama should have flocked [to Sherri Williams’ cause].
“Do you have to have the last nail pounded before everyone realizes what’s going on?” asks Sakas. “I don’t want any thank yous. I’ll do it but sometimes I get discouraged when people say, oh, I’ll give you a nickel off the movies. Hell, that’s the same nickel I was getting anyway.”
Sakas said he got a story from one individual apologizing for his company.
“Well these are cheap bastards I’m working for he tells me,” muses Sakas. “Well if you’re working for a cheap bastard you need to find another job anyway if you don’t have any more respect than that for the people you’re working for.”
In another instance, Sakas was told if he ordered a 1,000 movies, he’d get a dime off so he could have an extra $100. Sakas told them thanks, but no thanks.
“Forget it.”