Thanks to a reversal of application denials by the Blount County Adult-Oriented Establishment Board, Sunshyne Video #2, which opened for business last summer at 3531 U.S. 411 South, is once again selling adult videos and novelties to Maryville adults.
"We were closed approximately 60 days, and it was due to the way they misconstrued the law," Sunshyne owner David Anderson told AVN.com. "They violated a lot of different areas in the law, and we actually ended up going to the state capital and writing them a letter about everything and talking to them, because the county officials were acting on personal convictions rather than what the law is."
As reported here in March, Anderson has had an uphill battle with Blount County authorities from the beginning, with local officials and clergy holding town meetings within two weeks of the store's official opening, then quickly adopting an adult business ordinance requiring special licensing for adult stores and their employees.
The licensing was to be handled by a newly-appointed Adult-Oriented Establishment Board, two of whose five members were local clergymen, another taught at a local Sunday school, and another had already participated in harassing phone calls to the store. The fifth member was a local attorney who had done official work for the Blount County authorities.
Faced with a government board stacked against him, Anderson added non-adult items to his inventory so that the ratio was one-third adult, two-thirds non-adult, but the board didn't care.
"I was basically told that as long as I sold any adult items at all I would be required to apply for an adult-oriented license in order to operate my business," Anderson wrote in a letter to state officials. "Further the board decided to seek an injunction against me and my business to stop us from selling any adult items at all, which clearly oversteps the allowances made by law."
After being served with an injunction prohibiting him from selling or advertising any of his adult merchandise, Anderson applied for an adult-use license. Despite a favorable review by the local sheriff, however, the board stalled the review process and later denied the license based on ludicrous technicalities. For instance, when Anderson's attorney, Billy Gribble, asked the board to make its decision on Sunshyne's application within the 10 days prescribed by law, he was told that the board calculated its timeline by business days, not calendar days.
"Please note that all time lines applied against me were held as calendar days and any time lines that favored the board were held as business days," wrote Anderson. "This is clearly a misuse of authority and application of any laws in regards to fairness."
Finally, on April 1, the board denied Sunshyne's license application because it claimed that Sunshyne had failed to prove that it had "satisfied the rules, regulations and provisions of the applicable zoning requirements in the county."
"This was not listed on the application that we filled out when we applied for our license nor were we told that this would be an issue," Anderson stated. "Due to numerous newspapers articles, it was clearly public knowledge that we were in compliance with all applicable zoning laws and requirements. Furthermore at the Adult Oriented Board Meeting of 9/23/2004, County Attorney Norm Newton advised the board then that we were in compliance as well and any changes made to zoning would not affect us."
Anderson appealed the denial, and on April 19, after pressure from Anderson's attorney, who played a September, 2004 tape of the county attorney assuring the board that any zoning changes enacted since the store's opening would not affect the store, the board reversed itself and granted the license – but that wasn't the end of Anderson's problems.
For one thing, although two of Anderson's employees were granted permits to work in the store, at this writing, the permits haven't been issued, nor has the board issued Sunshyne's operating permit – both omissions being violations of the adult-use ordinance by the board. Anderson is concerned that if the permits aren't posted in the store, authorities may try to shut him down and revoke his license for the failures.
For another, Anderson is due in court on May 18 regarding a citation issued by the sheriff on February 15 for operating an adult business without a license. If found guilty, that could be another reason to revoke Sunshyne's permit.
"We're waiting for our paperwork to come back on that," Anderson said. "We're going to do a diversion thing on that, to where they're going to have to drop the prosecution, and if that's not approved, we're going to argue that the court doesn't have jurisdiction because the sheriff should have issued a civil citation, but they issued it as a criminal one."
If the "diversion thing" is approved, Anderson would be placed on a sort of informal probation for a period of time – probably one year – and if he commits no offenses within that period, the citation would be dismissed and the record expunged.
But the lack of written permits continues to be a major obstacle.
"Each and every day that the permits are not issued continues to cost us business and a loss of income as well as undue hardship," Anderson wrote to his state representative. "We feel that the non-issuance of these permits is just a further ploy by local officials to keep us from doing business. It is unjust that we are forced to comply with the laws that are being abused by those officials in power. We have completed all requirements as outlined by law in order to do business, yet we are being delayed without just cause."
Anderson is anxious to put the permit problems behind him, because he's got some big plans that will require his full attention.
"We're getting ready to start up production of our amateur line," Anderson said. "Sunshyne Video will be involved in the releasing and distributing of The World's Largest Blow-Bang. Summer Nyte, a local amateur, took on 249 guys down at the Social Club, and we have all the footage of it. There's a lot of footage there, and Ron Jeremy was there. We've got a lot of companies looking to pick it up."
"Our amateur line is unlike any other," he continued. "It's true amateur; no professional porn stars. That's why our stuff does real good in the market, and that's what we're doing with contract negotiations with Summer; she has five other movies and we want to promote those as well. If we reach a contract agreement on this today, we're looking for a release date on this blow-bang of hopefully June 1st or June 15th at the latest, depending on how quickly the replicators can get it done for me. And that's going to culminate in the redoing of sunshynevideo.com, our amateur pay site, as well as blowbangers.com."
"We're rolling, back in business," he summarized. "City Hall wanted to play the game. The only thing is, they lost."
