LOUISVILLE, Ky. - A group of retirees known as the Jackson County Community Watchdogs has issued an invitation to government officials, the media, the clergy and others to join them on a bus tour Oct. 27 of the adult businesses operating in Louisville and Clarksville.
The group has been picketing daily outside local adult bookstore the Lion's Den for over two years, and hopes that this tour will ramp up concern amongst their fellow community citizens over the "widespread and adverse effects" they feel adult businesses cause.
"We want to show people what can happen when you turn your head," Watchdogs legal liaison Ralph Sweany told the Courier-Journal. "You let these businesses get a foothold, pretty soon you've got a porn district."
Financed by donations from area churches and members of the Watchdogs, the bus tour will begin at the Jackson County courthouse. Protesters will proceed for there to the Lion's Den, then south to Theatre X in Clark County and on to a string of stores along Seventh Street Road and Fern Valley Road in Louisville. There, they plan to stop in to hunting shop Grizzly Creek to hear its owner's testimony about how his business fared next to one since shuttered that dealt in adult.
The remaining itinerary is still being mapped out, said organizer Rob Patterson, but will include some "undercover" revelations discovered by the group. He added that this tour is being modeled after one in 2003 that was "a big success" because it convinced several council members to back an adult entertainment ordinance with tightened regulations.
The protests against the Lion's Den have been continuous even since before it opened in August 2005, and there is a case still pending in Jackson Superior Court charging the business with misrepresenting itself in its intent.
The group's tactics include passing out bibles and posting pictures of the Lions' Den's customers on website www.war-line.com.
Said one protestor, Ray Owen, "Sink, swim, survive or perish, we're here for the duration. Everything they do, we'll try to counter it."
