The long awaited grand opening of KK Temptations will happen this Saturday at noon. Friends and lovers will be admitted at 11:00, by invitation–the general public at noon.
Kim and Kristina invite everyone to their store to see what all the fuss has been about.
Hopefully, denizens of Manassas and Prince William County will put on their best manners and welcome these new shopkeepers to our community.
A new shop is always exciting and good for our economy.
Let’s see if this second post on the subject brings out the wrath of the christian right [lower case intentional] like the first one did. If that happens, we can always rename the thread “Greg Letiecq fights pornography with pornography.” But I digress…..
News & Messenger reporter Keith Walker has up-to-date coverage of the latest plan for the City of Manassas during Fall Festival, which is one of the city’s biggest events. About 50 people are expected to gather in protest at City Hall sometime during the Fall Festival.
Apparently the plan to coerce merchants into closing their doors between noon and 1 pm didn’t pan out. I know of 1 merchant who ran off the visitor who came to garner support for her cause. Picture a restaurant owner telling everyone to stop eating and to get up and leave right at noon. Sort of makes one chuckle, if some idealistic person didn’t take it seriously. What shopkeeper closes down during the busiest time of the biggest sale day of the year?
The leader of this pack was quoted in the News and Messenger:
MANASSAS, Va. —
Jennifer Basinger said she’s expecting about 50 people to show up at Manassas City Hall on Saturday to rally against an adult store set to open Oct. 20 on Battle Street in Old Town.
She said KK’s Temptations won’t fit in with the historic nature of the area.
“The shop I feel — and many do — is just not consistent with what Old Town is about,” Basinger said.
However, she doesn’t have anything against Kim and Kristina Skokan, the mother-and-daughter team who plan to open the store.
“It’s not a personal vendetta against the owner. It’s not an ugly, self-righteous march at all,” the 39-year-old Basinger said. “It’s really just wanting to keep Old Town the way it is.”
Basinger said the group will restrict itself to the area around City Hall between noon and 2 p.m. to avoid disrupting the Fall Jubilee that is also taking place Saturday.“It’s peaceful. It’s non-confrontational. It’s not meant to take any thunder away from the fall festival,” she said. “It’s not going to be a bunch of people marching into Old Town.”
Reality check! I saw an email or 2 and I don’t think you say some of that stuff to someone you don’t have a vendetta against. Perhaps I just have different values. Ms. Basinger needs to be more honest and forthright about that one.
Another reality check involves the image you want to create for your city. Do you want to stage a protest of any sort on your biggest tourism day of the year? Why not just bring Mr. Fernandez back with a few native Americans to parade around. I am sure he would be glad to accommodate. Anything to embarrass the City. How is this different? At least if Mr. F paraded around with Native Americans you could tell the guests coming in from other areas that it was just the Tea Party, getting ready to dump a few barrels of tea overboard.
Furthermore, what is it that these people want the City of Manassas to do? The City has caved in to every demand. Many people I know are so disgusted with the City for acquiescing to this group of christian conservatives [lower case intentional] that they are simply not going to spend money in the City. In trying to please everyone, you please no one.
Most of the City Councilpersons are nice people who take their elected position seriously. They try to represent their constituents, rather than advance their own agendas. What I don’t think they realize is that many people find KK Temptations a welcome addition to the City. It breaks up the ho hum and the restaurants. An even bigger number don’t care one way or the other.
Kim Skokan and her daughter have postponed their grand opening out of deference to the City merchants who will be their new neighbors. They didn’t want to draw attention away from a big sales day. They have dotted every i and crossed every t. Perhaps they, too, have been just a little too accommodating to those who are all about control and bullying. (and elections)
It sounds like Ye Olde City Council is going to cave in to the pompous prudes of purity in their quest to extinguish all erotica in the City of Manassas. The pitch forks have been sharpened and the torches lit.
According to the News & Messenger:
After a closed session Monday night, the Manassas City Council unanimously passed a resolution aimed at regulating sexually-oriented businesses in the city.
City officials say the resolution will allow officials to keep future sexually-oriented businesses — dubbed SOBs in the paperwork — away from schools, churches, day care centers, playgrounds, youth activity centers and libraries.
The resolution also allows the council to hire outside lawyers to provide a “second opinion” on the validity of existing permits for such businesses. The action will costed [sic] an estimated $71,000.
The action comes in the wake of an uproar over a mother-and-daughter plan to open KK’s Temptations, an adult boutique, in Old Town next month.
It sounds like the Salem Witch Trials have begun. It might be cheaper for Ye Olde City Council to built a dunking pond over on ye Olde Museum Property. If it floats, it might be erotica.
Guest Post by Cindy Brookshire.
Cindy was one of the speakers at citizen time last night in the City of Manassas. She shares her reflections.
Disclaimer: All guest posts are the opinion of the poster and do not necessarily represent the views of moonhowlings.net administration. M-H
I was there for the full time of citizen comment. I was in the minority – only four of us spoke in defense of this shop owner: the attorney for KK Temptations, a patron of the MVC store near Kindercare on Mathis Ave, the owner of the Manassas Junction Bed & Breakfast and me, another woman-owned small business owner in the City of Manassas. I was the only one of the four who stayed for the whole 3+ hours.
And despite that, it didn’t have the feel of a pitchfork and torches event. I knew a good many people in the room – longtime residents of the City, parishioners of local churches, parents involved in their schools. There were counselors and doctors and those with careers in law enforcement. There were business owners in Old Town. There were people from my neighborhood watch, and the Chief of Police, Doug Keen.
I found many of the comments very eloquent – one elderly man spoke so beautifully about the love between a man and a woman, and he addressed the gathering more than to the council, that when Mayor Parrish had to interrupt him to tell him he was going over time, we didn’t want him to stop. Another young man got up and spoke and anyone would have been proud of him.
