SAGINAW, Mich. - Intimate Ideas, a store stocked with lingerie, adult novelties, magazines, and videos, will open its doors in coming days, after ending a 16-month lawsuit against the township with a June 10 consent judgment. Thomas Township residents prepare to picket, as the police chief issues statement.
"I know there are groups of unhappy people who have indicated that there will be picketing when the store opens," said Timothy W. Ader, a Thomas Township trustee.
Police Chief Steve Kocsis' statement to his officers reminded them that the picket must not obstruct traffic near the store and any protest must be peaceful.
The federal case, filed in Eastern District Court, 1000 Washington in Bay City, cost the township $50,000 in legal fees, said township Manager Russell P. Taylor.
The consent judgment allows Intimate Ideas to dedicate 30 percent of floor space to adult novelty items, said township lawyer Thomas J. McGraw of Kupelian, Ormand & Magy in Southfield. The other 70 percent of the store will feature lingerie.
"The plaintiff wanted to open up a shop with absolutely no restrictions whatsoever," McGraw said. "We undertook substantial negotiations and came up with a settlement that extends to the fullest extent of the law."
McGraw says the township was victorious, although many residents wanted to bar the business. The First Amendment gives businesses a degree of freedom that no township could interfere with, McGraw said.
The township adopted an ordinance to keep adult businesses from opening easily last year.
The old ordinance defined an adult business as one that dedicated a "significant amount" of floor space to adult novelty items. The new ordinance identifies that amount as 25 percent or more of floor space.
The ordinance also re-labels "adult entertainment activity" as "sexually oriented activity."
An added subsection describes sexually oriented materials as books, magazines, periodicals, printed and/or electric or digital matter, photographs, films, motion pictures, videocassettes, compact discs, slides, or other visual representations characterized by their emphasis upon the exhibition or description of specified sexual activities or specified anatomical areas.
"Let's make no mistake about it, we're not talking about adult entertainment," McGraw said. "Adult entertainment would be the Dejà Vu. This is something very different."
A Saginaw News reporter stated that in 2003, an Intimate Ideas opened in Mount Pleasant, after it bypassed filing a zoning application, sued, and reached a consent judgment with Union Township.
Union Township amended its zoning ordinance to more thoroughly regulate the distance-now 600 feet-that adult businesses can locate from churches, schools, residential zoning districts, public parks, or licensed day cares. The amended ordinance also includes a more specific definition of adult business.
"I'm sure we're not the only township in the state that they've decided to sue because of a deficient ordinance," said Woody Woodruff, the Union Township zoning administrator. "They found something that worked in Mount Pleasant, and they certainly repeated the pattern."
Store employees say the owners have several other adult businesses throughout Michigan.
