WILMINGTON, N.C. - Adult retailer Greg Sakas called us frantically from his car.
"I'm being raided right now," Sakas told AVN at approximately 1 p.m. Eastern time. "I'm on my way to Wilmington right now to see what's going on, and we're just a half mile away from Adam & Eve."
"You know, this is another city in North Carolina, and we just beat them in one," he continued. "You know what they're trying to do, don't you? You know this all stems from what's going on in New Bern! I'm on my way down there right now to get the paperwork. Will I be arrested? Who knows? My attorney said no, but I said, 'Hell, I'm going down there. If they arrest me, they arrest me.'"
"I'll tell you what: I need help in this state," Sakas said. "If this keeps going, I can't continue to fight this. This is ridiculous. They say they're having complaints. They're not having any complaints. What it is, it all stems from one thing: New Bern; the preponderance and the sales figures, and I know that because they [Wilmington police] asked for them and I said I refused to give them anything. When I go down there, I'm going to turn it over to my attorneys. I'm going to refuse to give them anything at this point."
Sakas was referring to his recent prosecution in New Bern, where the judge threw out all charges after just three-and-a-half hours of testimony. In that trial, Sakas, the owner of Pure Bliss, a general video store that also carries adult movies, had been charged with running a business that derived more than 50% - a "preponderance" - of its income from adult products and in which more than 50% of the store's stock was adult. However, District Court Judge Peter Mack ruled that the lingerie and novelties which Sakas sold in the store did not count toward the percentage of stock or income that was "adult," in part because North Carolina has no "obscene device" law which would brand that material as adult.
"We got acquitted there; I thought it was pretty much over," the exasperated Sakas said. "It's not."
In the New Bern raids, police seized Sakas' entire stock of movies and toys.
"I don't think they're that stupid to do that here," he said. "This is starting to be a big story here in North Carolina, don't you think?"
We think.
