Plans for an adult video store in this St. Louis suburb are on hold until at least August under an agreement fashioned Monday that will give a neighboring dance studio enough time to relocate.
"The store is not going to open until there is a hearing on a permanent injunction," St. Louis lawyer Murry Marks, who represented owners of a Pure Pleasure Megacenter store at a hearing in circuit court in Belleville, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
The report went on to say that the fight between the store's owners and the city, which wants to keep Pure Pleasure from opening at a strip mall, was postponed Monday by agreement of the parties, and made official by Circuit Judge Andrew Gleeson. He scheduled a two-day hearing for Aug. 1.
Lawyer Al Paulson, who represents the city, said in court that he would like to delay Marks and the store's ownership as long as possible.
"They're not going to get anywhere," he told a reporter after the hearing. "Our ordinance was modeled after others held to be constitutional by other courts."
Michael Shaw reported that Fairview Heights’ adult business ordinance, enacted in March, prohibits any adult bookstore, cabaret or theater within 1,000 feet of a liquor store, school, park, church or several other facilities.
The store is complete and ready to open, its owner, Don Kleinhans of Florida, has said. In a previous interview with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, he said he believed the city's rules were so narrowly drafted that it would keep an adult store from opening anywhere within city limits.
Located within the same mall as Pure Pleasure is the Midwest Dance Academy, which caters to children.
The studio's owner, David Carnaghi, said it will move by Aug. 1.
