Just when we thought it was safe to go back to the City of Manassas, we find out that the sin of sex is lurking about on Battle Street. Oh my goodness! Some Godless sinner wants to set up a shop selling ‘marital aids.’
I suppose the major question should be whether the proposed shop will fit in with the decor of Old Town Manassas or will it have a giant condom the size of Gumby outside, luring customers in. Will Mr. Buzzy be out sitting on the bench outside the shop, showing all the ladies his talents?
Perhaps the shop keeper will behave as anyone wanting to do business and keep the ‘adult’ business inside and the kiddies out. Or, if ‘marital aids’ aka sex toys are just a sideline, perhaps there will be an adult section of the store. Anyone wanting to fit in needs to meet zoning standards and town codes. The decor should match everyone else.
Manassas is no stranger to stores of this nature. There is a Fashion Fantasy clothing shop over on rt. 28 that sells considerably more than fishnet stockings. No one seemed to mind that shop and it has been there for years. All sorts of dirty little secrets can be bought at Fashion Fantasy on 28. If any of the town leaders are upset because the new shop will be in Old Town, then that is pretty hypocritical. I guess it is ok to have an erotic shop over near the trailer park but not too close to the more upscale part of town. Some things never change.
Little birds are telling me that some of the fine folks of Manassas have some fairly draconian plans to discourage customers. So much for the concept of free market. Probably those who are in the biggest tail spin over the new shop are the ones who do a lot of catalog orders. [wink wink]
UPDATE FROM NEWS & MESSENGER 9/3/10
I think it’s a neat idea. There is a shop like ‘this’ over in Old Town Alexandria.. After the City Council wouldn’t let a man expand his business he sublet his space out to one of these establishments to poke an eye in the City government.
Good for him. Fight the man.
So, is this serious or just a rumor? Any business is good business IMHO.
The person who told me was very serious and in a good position to know.
I don’t think that just any business should be allowed to come in but I think if the shop conforms to community standards and follows the rules, a bunch of do-gooders shouldn’t be allowed to ruin a business.
I also think the city has every right to set the standards. No Mr. Condom out luring in customers etc, like Master Tuxedo does with its costumes at Halloween. Of course, there is a big difference in Mr. Condom and Dracula.
After Jiffy Lube Live, nothing phases me, not even if it has a window display with John Wayne Bobbitt’s adult films from the 1990s. I’m more upset with Hooters exploiting women while McDonalds throws nursing moms out for trying to feed their babies in public.
Must really be economic hard times in Old Town Manassas. I can see the store signs now: “XXX Adult Sex Toys. Nude Girls. Complete Selection of DVDs. Couples welcome.” At least those are the signs you see here and there along 1-70 in rural Missouri. I did notice, however, that those establishments are pretty much relegated to the corn fields and pastures along the parallel local roads, kept rather far away from the small farm towns in the neighborhood with their multiple church steeples. Then again, there is an establishment on US 522 just outside of Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. It has a motel conveniently attached. Now, if Old Town Manassas zoning regulations allow for small, discreet motels, y’all are in business here. The tourist brochures should be an interesting read: “Come visit us in Manassas, Sin City on the Bull Run. Visit our battlefield. Shop at our interesting boutiques. What happens in Manassas stays in Manassas.” Y’all will be the envy of every economic planner in the region.
Rest assured, Manassas has one of those motels. Perfectly decent name. Its just that everyone knows. Some things don’t need a sign. Their reputation preceeds them.
I only defended the store if it is legal and fits in with the decor. That would exclude signs that said XXX Adult Sex Toys.
Wolverine, you ought to call the town planners to get on the jobs list for slogan. Damn, there are some good ones.
So, how about all the Civil War hookers. Can we get some of those for the sesquicentennial?
Darn good idea, Moon. The Civil War hookers, I mean. You could link that right into Civil War re-enactments. Could even start up a new campground for Civil War buffs. Call it “Camp Follower.”
Snicker. I will let you have it for that new job you are applying for. I think they need your help, Wolverine. You could get rid of all that stuffiness around the civil war. We always think of those folks as so stuffy. HBO says otherwise.
Camp Follower….LOL
I wonder if they will wrap your purchases in plain brown wrappers?? Are they gonna have those blow up dolls? Mine has so many patches on it it looks like the tattooed lady in the circus.
@Wolverine
“Camp Follower”–as Moon says–bwaaaaaaaaaaa! Very funny!
You guys are killin’ me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Too funny! Makes me want to go over and DARE someone to take a picture of me. So, I guess the gun shops and liquor stores are perfectly fine, but sex is not?
MH,
LOVED your last line about catalogue shopping!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ahh, nothing like going into one of those shops wearing shorts and a long overcoat. Makes them think “Is he naked under there?” Look the part!
Isn’t there a gunsmith in Old Towne Manassas? I hear he makes some amazing customized Glocks and 1911’s. When the market turns a bit I was thinking about buying my BIL a .45 Glock in Army ACU coloring. He’s got 2 beautiful daughters he needs to protect. 🙂
I’m not familiar enough with Manassas but isn’t there an MVC over on Rt. 28? I don’t see any difference between that store and what’s being talked above. Let them build.
Apparently some folks are really stirred up over this. Now please tell me why the good Christians of Manassas have ignored the “sex shop” over on 28, within city limits and are crawling all over this one? I mean a leather cod piece is a leather cod piece and fur lined cuffs are fur lined cuffs whether on Battle Street or Route 28.
Some are, according to my email, trying to drag the Founders into it. Holy cow, have they never read any scholarly works about Ben Franklin? He probably invented sex toys. How many children did he sire, NOT by the good Mrs. Franklin? Something like 21 that he acknowledged. This thread is becoming like the ones on rampant ignorance.
George Washington lusted for someone else’s wife. He followed her around like a lost puppy. (before Martha of course) Jefferson made a deathbed promise to his wife never to remarry. He ended up in an arrangement with a slave woman who just happened to be his dead wife’s half sister. Just another little dirty, scholarly secret.
I don’t stand in judgement of any of this but I sure am not going to offer up the Founders as saints. They had feet of clay like anyone else. Poor guys. They obviously liked a little action like most human beings. Some of them might not have been vanilla. Gasp!
Slowpoke, will you be visiting the store in trenchcoat?
Marin, yes there is and he is a very nice man. My son thinks highly of him. He has a nice wife also. His shop is in old town. Not sure what an MVC is. But there is a lot on 28 and I have addressed the other Fashion Fantasy place.
Obviously people just want to read the articles here too and not look at the pictures. 🙄
MH, I found the article on the Old Town Alexandria shop.. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/28/AR2009022801976.html I admire the guy because he’s fighting the government.
Look at the picture of the front window display.
MVC is/was Manassas Video Club. There is one over by Route 1/234. Sometimes it seems like it’s the only business with customers in that shopping complex.
😉
If the City wants to start cleaning up they can start by having a continual police presence at the 7-11 that serves as a gateway to Old Town Manassas. They need to bust up some of the drug deals going down there as well as around the back.
I’m sympathetic to wanting to keep Old Town free of dildos and porn or whatever.
On a practical level, for those who want “marital aids”, the internet is the way to go anyway. Browse the racks at MVC and marvel at the body parts on display and rows and rows of objectification and fetish. Quite possibly, throw up. Then buy whatever your guilty pleasure is online for half the cost rather than at MVC.
Alert the ACLU! Alert the ACLU!!
I just saw a picture of the store front, it looks very nice, it’s called KK Tempations I think. I don’t disagree with Ricks analysis of hard core porn, but there are other ways to improve your sex life and feeling embarrassed or that you are doing something wrong is not healthy. The “call to arms” sent out by Jackson Miller sounds hysterical. I would not want the neon XXX Sex Shop sign in Old Town either, but that is NOT what this store appears to look like.
I’m not trying to be funny, but if you let in “KK Temptations” with a tasteful front display, there is no real rationale for then prohibiting “Al’s Used Dildos” or “Harry’s Sex Shop” from setting up in future.
This guy will be in Old Town before you know it – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYejdUV170U&p=3DBAE5D7A0CF31A9&playnext=1&index=2
or the “International House of Panties” (no youtube clip of this SCTV sketch – dozens of perverts crowded around a table checking out used panties)
Then society devolves completely and we end up with this – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmLfpoj5e84&feature=channel
– You can apparently Google it at “KK’s Temptations Manassas”.
– Jackson Miller has called a public meeting about this store for Sept. 7 at 7AM
at Manassas City Hall. He isn’t pleased, but what can be done is
an open question.
7PM!
@cindy b
Amen on Hooters, Cindy! I’ve been complaining about that one for years. Don’t try to tell me all men go there for the hot wings.
Anyway, I don’t think a store like that should be in Old Town, especially when so many good little businesses are no longer operating. Old Town has a mystique and fabulous history. Sex shops are kind of slummy. Much better to have shops like that online.
Incidentally, KK reminds me of the triple K.
Is the triple K supposed to mean something to us?
There are crummy sex shops and then there are adult boutiques that sell adult products. There was a very nice one at Spotsylvania Mall, Fair Oaks Mall, and then there was the once famous Pleasure Chest. These places weren’t slummy or sleazy unless adult products make you uncomfortable.
I don’t think that people should have to go to the seamy side of town to make purchases. This goes right into the line of sex is dirty thinking. There is no reason that the shop keeper can’t have a discrete shop right there beside everyone else. What do some of these people do when they pass Victoria’s Secret at the mall? Cover their kids’ eyes?
The City should have its codes and ordinances shored up for Old Town so they can insist on tasteful displays in all windows. All stores should have to meet the standards of architecture. Covenants should be in place to insure that all shops fit in with their neighbors….an urban HOA of sorts.
Rather than trying to run someone out of town, I would be trying to swing (no pun intended) them over to my side so it was in their best interest to be a good neighbor. To do otherwise makes the naysayers out to be prudes, prigs, and quite like the Salem witch hunts.
Somethiing just caught my eye:
.
Are the officials trying to do away with this shop crazy? Is the City crazy? A video camera with a live feed? Would the City allow its visitors to be intimidated like this?
This suggestion is living proof that conservatives do want government interference…but only when it suits them.
If I were to go to this shop and there was someone with a video camera aimed at me, the Manassas Police would be on speed dial. If they refused to do anything, the second number on speed dial with be the ACLU.
You can’t bully and intimidate people into doing things your way.
‘Porno shop’ defines more about the person saying it than the shop. I would call a boutique that sells adult products an ‘adult boutique.’ If you tell everyone that the city has a porno shop, the people will come and you will have trashed your own reputation. If an adult boutique, or shop is allowed to exist without attention, then the free market will do its thing. If people are interested, then they frequent the shop and buy its products. If they aren’t, then they won’t, and the shop will fail.
Too much drama. Old men in flashing trenchcoats don’t go to these places. 95% of the customers will be women who really shouldn’t h ave to to the sleazy side of town to shop.
I noticed on their website that they have late evening hours. Maybe they’ll keep Manassas hopping and pick up the late bar crowd that wants a little fun.
http://kktemptations.com/contact.html
Ha ha. I didn’t link to the home page which might put the Puritanical crowd over the edge.
We cross-posted. Don’t ya love how the Puritanical right is drawn to all things sexual like moths to a flame! They want to control the most intimate details of people’s lives – when they die, whom they love and how, when they bear children, whether they can buy sex toys or lingerie or have a massage. It would be comical if they didn’t didn’t take themselves so seriously and if they didn’t have political hacks willing to pander to them.
It’s funny how the City “fathers” think when it comes to protecting the look and feel of Old Town. Several years ago, there was a proposal to build a Piggly Wiggly or some such on the property between Center Street and the Portuguese club (next to the Harley store). There was a whole lot of yelling about how it would spoil the “entry” to old town (as if that shabby little stretch going all the way to Two Days Gifts is so elegant anyway). So what did we get? Overly tall, bulky-looking, aluminum-sided apartment buildings that block the view of the neighborhood by the Portuguese club and look completely out of place. Yeah, that’s just what we need in the City–more high-density rental housing where instead we could have had a convenience store that would have brought us some tax revenue.
A sex shop? Keep it tasteful, blend it in, and keep the kids out. BFD. Old Town can’t just be about Okra’s and Carmello’s.
too many didn’ts ^
Emma, I agree about the apartment buildings – it’s only a matter of time until a car or truck plows into someone’s living room there.
I think it should be noted that a few conservatives here have voiced support for this business. To paraphrase Emma, “BFD!”.
It’s a business, they’re gonna bring in revenue, taxes and foot traffic into the area. I say, Good on them!
Wish our legislators would move this quickly on matters of greater consequence. There has to be a better way of communicating than with this knee-jerk mob mentality of “crucify them!”
Ask the police what they catch going on in the parking deck, which is 100 feet from the Center for the Arts. Does that mean we should close the parking deck? I don’t think so.
I came out of the Center one night after a play with my children and confronted a drunk lying on one of the benches. Does that mean we should shutter the bars in Old Town? I don’t think so.
As for being blocks from Osbourn High School, please. Wasn’t there an incident with football players INSIDE the school a few years ago? I found that a whole lot more shocking than a family-owned business selling marital aids and bridal shower teasers.
Remember, it’s an Old Town with a New Attitude.
Unless you want to hang out at a restaurant and drink, there really isn’t much else to do in Old Town later in the evening anyway. You can wander in to Opera House Gourmet (again, more alcohol) or just walk around, but that’s pretty much it. The city made a big investment in widening two sidewalks so that two private businesses could have sidewalk dining (and in the meantime, my street has not been repaved in well over 10 years, and it shows–but hey, I’m just the little old taxpayer footing the bill) because the City Council feared that those two businesses would move elsewhere. Old Town needs some new blood. And I’m betting most of the patrons of this shop will be women and couples.
I’m a happily-married lady. If people who know me see me going into that shop, what should they think? Well, that I’m a happily-married lady!
I’ll agree with Marinm on this one. It’s a business. It’ll either make money for the owners and the City or it’ll follow the last two tenants into a quick demise.
Go Emma. Those apartment buildings are unsafe. So is the sudden swerve the road makes.
Speaking of that area, check out the house back by the rail yard that has parties all the time, complete with admission charges and parking attendents. I don’t see the city fathers (and mother) doing anything about that. If you Google enough you’ll see the drunken party pictures. Big party for all our underage teens this weekend!
http://www.local.com/events/event/E0-001-032713884-1/levis-garage-presents-back-to-school-bb-q-bash-2010.aspx
Moonhowlings women rule! Marin too. I would offer to make you an honorary woman but you probably wouldn’t think it was a compliment.
Cindy, Emma, and Censored –thanks for an intelligents, unhysterical response.
The more I think about people videoing patrons going in and out of the store the angrier I get. How dare the prigs and prudes of Manassas think they can intimidate others that way. Furthermore, interferring with someone’s business like that reeks of Mafic tactics. Sounds like a good way to get hit with a RICCO charge.
Emma is right. BFD.
MH, fight fire with fire. Videotape them back. Follow them back to their homes. Videotape there front doors. Who’s going in and out of those homes? Maybe the public wants to know…
I’m fine staying male but thanks for the offer. 🙂
Marin, if I were an activist I would consider it. (or if this was my sword to fall on) I am just appalled that elected officials would think of something like that. I will tell you behind the scenes what’s been happening.
Where did the quote come from about videotaping patrons, Moon?
Comments are closed and hidden on the insidenova site. Interesting.
I am going to email you Emma.
I thought that was interesting also. I heard there were a lot of odd ones.
Emma, check your email. I am protecting the guilty.
The Pleasure Chest, that was a great store. Beautifully maintained and totally directed towards a female clientele.
I agree, Women Rule on Moonhowlings!
LOVE IT 🙂
Comments are still open on the Insidenova Facebook site. 🙂