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Victim of the Economy: St. Paul’s Last Adult Bookstore Closes

St. Paul – from www.twincities.com – Ever hear the old adage you go to St. Paul to pray, and Minneapolis to sin?

St. Paul, which bills itself as the most livable city in America, is looking especially angelic these days with the passing of its last adult bookstore.

Denmark Books at 459 W. Seventh St. closed last month, ending the run of the most perseverant not-so-literary haunt in Pig’s Eye. After 16 years hawking adult movies, X-rated books and bedroom supplies, its death-rattle signals the end of an era of peep shows, adult movie theaters and massage parlors.

“The economy was just getting rough,” said Marc Shulze, 26, who bought Denmark Books three years ago. The shop had four employees at its height.

“It just wasn’t working anymore. The Internet was huge competition. People can go online, pay $10 a month and get unlimited access (to pornography).”

Jeffrey Austin, the landlord at 459 W. Seventh St., hopes to see the store, which has already been gutted, transformed into a health-foods bakery or deli to complement his neighboring yoga studio, RiverGarden Yoga Center, which he opened eight years ago.

“It’s always kind of been a yin-yang thing — we have the yoga center and then the porn bookstore,” said Austin, who said his yoga clients took the contrast in stride. “I think in the end, it’s kind of good for the neighborhood that it’s gone. It’s the direction that West Seventh is going in.”

Most of St. Paul’s adult clubs, bookstores, DVD stores and peep shows have also long since closed, after highly targeted zoning and development battles in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Bought by the city in 1989, the Faust adult theater at the once-notorious corner of University Avenue and Dale Street was torn down and replaced in 2006 by the Rondo Community Outreach Library.

The Belmont, a strip club at the same intersection, was briefly transformed into a police precinct. Also gone are such infamous adult clubs as the Payne Reliever on Payne Avenue, Casey’s and Raquel’s Rap, a “sauna” that advertised “Frank Adult Discussion” with nude women on West Seventh.

In St. Paul, the only place where women are legally permitted to go au naturel for cash anymore is the Lamplighter Lounge on Larpenteur Avenue, and there only behind protective stage glass, without ever making physical contact with patrons. Men push tips through a drawer.

The peep shows have winked out. The cops have put the kibosh on the steamy saunas and massage parlors, forcing ladies of the night and their handlers to advertise online, operating out of hotels and residential homes.

Some say that’s hardly a surprise, with so much going digital and finding root on the Internet. Others say the naughty clubs and novelty stores have just moved to Minneapolis, where more permissive zoning allows a cluster of such establishments in or near downtown, an area home to 17 adult-themed bars, clubs and entertainment sites.

Recently, patrons and employees at the Lamplighter Lounge said their small, blue-collar bar was tame by Minneapolis standards. “I’ve worked at other strict clubs, and this is by far the strictest,” said a worker who declined to identify himself for fear of losing his job. “People tell us all the time, ‘I’m going down to Minneapolis where I can touch, or I can do this or do that.’ ”

St. Paul City Council member Dave Thune sees the difference between the Twin Cities’ adult entertainment scenes as a good thing.

“We always talk about how St. Paul is more conservative than Minneapolis. Years ago, we did make a concerted effort to get rid of nude dancing, even the glass-wall dancing. It’s just not family-oriented, family-friendly activity,” Thune said. “What Minneapolis does is up to Minneapolis.”

Minneapolis City Council member Gary Schiff, chair of the council’s zoning and planning committee, said zoning changes in the late 1980s forced adults-only bookstores, saunas, video stores and strip clubs out of residential neighborhoods and into downtown, which was designated for “sexually oriented uses.” Adult-oriented retailers such as the Smitten Kitten remain exempt.

The relocation unfolded over about 15 years, with adult video stores the last to comply. As the saunas and movie theaters closed or moved, one of the city’s most notorious red-light districts became liveable again in short order.

“It benefited the areas along Lake Street that absolutely saw a decrease in street prostitution as a result of the adult-oriented businesses moving,” Schiff said.

He said he’s heard from convention planners that, rather than scare tourists away, the adult zone gives Minneapolis “kind of a unique, big-city feel.” Other results, he said, are mixed.

“The strip clubs, when they clustered in downtown Minneapolis, it actually gave them more visibility,” Schiff said. “(But there are buildings that) would have converted to lofts or office space years ago. That whole area of sex clubs along Washington Avenue is a gap in the development of the warehouse district.”

In St. Paul, Thune finds the entertainment landscape much improved from the late 1970s and early 1980s, when he served as a member and sometimes-president of the West Seventh Street Federation. He remembers picketing establishments such as the PlayBoy Lounge and Raquel’s Rap — two suspected brothels — for 40 days and 40 nights and literally trading punches with angry club aficionados.

“Right around the corner from someone’s home, you’ve got a bunch of skuzzy guys drooling over nude women,” Thune said. “Up to that point, everyone denied there was prostitution going on there, and in parallel said, ‘It’s the oldest profession; you can’t drive it out. It’ll just end up somewhere else.’ We said, ‘That’s not true.’ It was going on in commercial strips on residential streets.”

As police clamped down and the city bought and redeveloped seedy properties, the administration of George Latimer, mayor from 1976 to 1990, made it increasingly difficult for new strips clubs to find a footing, said Bob Kessler, director of the Department of Safety and Inspections.

“Minneapolis tended to have a zoning category where a lot of the adult uses were concentrated in one area,” Kessler said. “St. Paul took the opposite approach — we wanted to have them spread out throughout the neighborhoods.”

The “dispersal” method came with a host of conditions. By the mid-1980s, hotly contested ordinance changes required strip clubs to be spaced well apart from each other, and well apart from “protected uses” such as residences, day cares and playgrounds. New adult clubs have to be built on industrial properties.

Outside of downtown, notices must be sent to property owners within 350 feet of a proposed club site, and 60 to 90 percent of private residents in the area must OK an adult club by petition. Liquor laws require food to be sold on the premises if there’s alcohol, and nude dancers must remain in a separate room.

With all these requirements, it’s little wonder adult club promoters have shied away from St. Paul.

“No one’s even asked in a couple of years,” said Kris Schweinler, a city licensing inspector of adult entertainment sites for the better part of 30 years.

Michael Gay, a clerk at the family-run Fantasy Gifts store at 1437 University Ave., doesn’t see what the big deal is. With the economy limping along, he believes unemployment and financial stress are dampening sex drives and unraveling marriages. What’s the harm, he asks, of doing a little lingerie shopping to keep things interesting?

“Stores like this help bring the spice back,” said Gay, who sells hosiery, 6-inch heels, “educational” DVDs, flavored lubricants and edible “body toppings” among other offerings.

There’s a larger question, he believes, as to what St. Paul should do to bring some economic buzz back to its business districts. Sex, he said, tends to sell quite well. “At 5 o’clock in downtown St. Paul — dead. Whereas you go to Minneapolis, it is still lively,” Gay said.

Fantasy Gifts, with a second St. Paul location at 375 E. Seventh St., eight other Minnesota sites and two in New Jersey, now also sells wares online.

Schulze, the owner of the now-defunct Denmark, said if he ever tries hawking adult materials again, it may not be a brick-and-mortar enterprise and it certainly won’t be in St. Paul.

“I know I’m not going to open up another store for a while, if ever. It was a great place to work, because there’s really no other occupation where you get paid to sit around and talk about sex all day. But in a way, I’m glad to see it gone,” he said. “All the stress of running around and managing employees was getting to me. (And) St. Paul is just so ridiculous with their adult laws. I don’t even want to deal with it anymore.”

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