Courant 2/9/07

From courant.com
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Fight Against Store Gains State Backing
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By VANESSA DE LA TORRE
Courant Staff Writer

February 9, 2007

BERLIN — State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal told residents
Thursday night that his office will help the town in its court battles
against Very Intimate Pleasures, which wants to open a sex-themed shop on
the Berlin Turnpike despite repeated rejections from town officials and
outcry from residential neighbors.

“The state is with you as a partner in this effort,” Blumenthal said.
“We have to draw the line. It’s not just your community involved, it’s
the whole state. I don’t want you to think I’m just doing you all a
favor.”

Blumenthal spoke to at least 75 people packed inside the Berlin-Peck
Memorial Library for a community-organized forum on the fight between
Berlin and VIP. Other panel members were Mayor Adam Salina, Police Chief
Paul Fitzgerald, state Sen. Don DeFronzo, D-New Britain; state Rep. Joe
Aresimowicz, D-Berlin; and state Rep. Catherine Abercrombie, D-Meriden.

Blumenthal, wearing a fluorescent yellow “NO VIP” sticker that
organizers passed out, said the state would not directly litigate on the town’s
behalf but would provide attorneys who could lend expertise and
research and become Berlin’s advocates in “defending values” that are
important to the state.

“I am a parent. I have four children,” he said. “And I know how upset
I’d be if I was in your shoes … seeing this kind of establishment move
in.”

Very Intimate Pleasures has proposed to sell sexually explicit books
and DVDs, oils, lingerie, “sex-positive” novelties and gag gifts.
Attorney Dan Silver has made legal arguments that VIP is a “romance shop” that
should not fall under the town’s ordinance on sexually oriented
businesses, which prohibits adult businesses from opening within 250 feet of
residential property. He claims that VIP is not an adult business.

Blumenthal said if the town, state and residents “fight hard enough, we
can win.” He added that his idea of winning was not merely beating VIP,
but “eliminating those establishments across the state.”

Earlier, Salina assured residents that the town was not backing down.
Tuesday night, the town council voted to spend $25,000 to hire the New
Haven law firm Wiggin and Dana to help Berlin’s corporate counsel in two
lawsuits that VIP filed in state court against the town in November.

The town has also hired an outside lawyer to assist in its defense
against a lawsuit VIP filed in federal court, which argues that the
sexually oriented business ordinance violates the Constitution because it
regulates a business protected by the First Amendment.

If VIP opens this summer without approval, Salina said the town would
seek a court injunction to close it down. Some neighbors said they have
seen tractor-trailers unloading boxes of merchandise into the VIP-owned
building, usually at night. There are also two large signs at the site
claiming that the store is “coming soon.”

Hellyn Riggins, Berlin’s chief zoning enforcement officer, delivered a
cease-and-desist order to VIP after the signs showed up on Jan. 18.
Riggins argued that the company was using the building without zoning
approval.

Salina said the town’s attorney has been talking with Silver, trying to
agree on a solution in which VIP covers the signs or takes them down.

Contact Vanessa de la Torre at vdelatorre@courant.com.
Copyright 2007, Hartford Courant

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