Residents protest adult store
 

submitted by Skipthisone

By DYLAN FENLEY, Daily News
MONTROSE - Business is booming for the Lion's Den Adult Superstore that
opened in Montrose this week, but the town's mayor is determined to run
the store out of town.

"It's got the whole town disturbed. We want businesses in here to bring
in money, but we don't want that kind of reputation," said Mayor Dennis
Fletcher.

The new store is part of a regional chain of Lion's Den Adult
Superstores. Lion's Den is an Ohio-based company that owns 27 stores in
eight states. The Montrose store is the fourth one in Illinois, with
other stores in Marion, Buckley and Atkinson.

The location - right next to the Interstate 70 off-ramp - was what
attracted Lion's Den to Montrose, said Sandy Summers, the traveling
manager-trainer who came to Montrose to set up the new store.

"Most of our stores are interstate stores," Summers said. "The majority
of our business is from travelers, including a large number of truck drivers."

Summers said she will probably remain at the Montrose store for three to
four weeks, until the store gets off the ground. Eventually, the store is
expected to employ four full-time people and three part-time.

A town meeting of about 25 concerned Montrose citizens was held Tuesday
night, Fletcher said. At that meeting, the citizens agreed they didn't
want the Lion's Den in town and discussed their options.

"We're doing everything we can. People from a couple of the churches have
come over and messed with them already (by issuing complaints), and there
will probably be more," said Fletcher, who spent Wednesday afternoon
photographing the cars of people who patronized the store.

The building which the Lion's Den leases was constructed recently. At the
time, it was not known what kind of business would locate there - in
fact, the building has windows which had to be covered up when the Lion's
Den moved in. The windows remain covered by indoor paneling. Fletcher
said one of his main complaints is that the village was not notified
beforehand that an adult store would be opening at the building.

The village has discussed zoning but currently has no zoning ordinances
in place. If the town was to implement zoning now, it could not be used
to displace the new store since businesses that do not conform to new
zoning regulations are protected under a grandfather clause.

Montrose village attorney Glenn Braden said Fletcher had contacted him in
regard to the town's legal options. Braden said the mayor wanted to know
if the town's nuisance ordinance would apply to the store, but Braden
wasn't sure if it would.

"I've just started looking into this, I don't have any answers yet,"
Braden said. "I do know that it is within the village boundaries, because
I checked that out years ago with that massage parlor we shut down."

The Lion's Den is located on a lot next door to the location of a massage
parlor which operated in Montrose in the mid-1980s. The massage parlor
was reputed to be a front for prostitution.

The village board passed a nuisance ordinance in 1986 which bans
"unlawful acts or omissions to perform a duty" which "offends decency" or
is "offensive to the senses." Within months that ordinance was used to
close the massage parlor.

Summers said she understands that the mayor is upset, but she's not
concerned with his threat to the store.

"We've been in business 30 years, and we haven't been shut down yet," she
said. "We don't force anybody to come in here. There's no windows. And no
one under 18 is allowed inside. We check the IDs of everybody who looks
under 40."

Since the Montrose store opened Sunday evening, Summers said business has
been booming. In fact, of the 10 to 12 new stores she's opened this year,
Summers said the Montrose store has had just about the best opening week yet.

The Lion's Den sells adult movies, DVDs, toys, lingerie, books and
novelties. It also rents adult movies. All of the Lion's Den's business
is carry-out retail only - meaning they have no on-sight movie viewing rooms.

Summers said about 40 percent of the Lion's Den's business is couples who
come into the store together. Another 40 percent are truck drivers who
stop in off the interstate.