The Register Finds Time for Sex
It’s been a couple of months since The Fullerton Savage’s debut on this blog drew over sixty responses to the story of a new sex oriented shop in downtown Fullerton. Now the Register has gotten into the act with a story about the same subject. Adam Townsend, the author, and many commenters on this blog seem to think I had something inherently against the business in question. This is what Mr. Townsend wrote:
‘The author called the shop’s merchandise “trash.” ‘The blog said that seeing the underwear-clad mannequins and other sexually-oriented merchandise would harm children and said allowing the business to operate was “engendering blight.’
To be fair, I did use the word “trash”, but trashy isn’t the worst thing to associate with lingerie. I never wrote that the sight of the busty mannequins etc. would “harm children.” I did write that they would get “quite an education” from looking into the shop’s windows. Remember, we are The Education City!
So maybe Adam Townsend got the wrong idea about my attitude toward a sex-themed business. No big deal, but where he really blew it in his article was when he wrote that I ‘said allowing the business to operate was “engendering blight.”‘
No, Mr. Townsend, what I asked was “Is there any better evidence of redevelopment engendering blight?” This is no small distinction. Shops like The Naughty Teddy are sometimes cited as examples of blight when cities are trying to establish redevelopment zones. Downtown Fullerton has been a redevelopment zone since 1973. My point, Mr. Townsend, was that despite nearly forty years and millions of dollars spent to push out pawn shops, lure in restaurants, add trees, build signs, commission murals, rehab storefronts, brick street medians, redesign traffic signals, build mixed use developments, and whatever else The Redevelopment Agency unilaterally decides is good for the area, in the end a 5,000 square foot shop that sells lubricants, videos and sex toys to the 21-and-over only crowd is open for business near a major intersection downtown.
Well, just for the record, I don’t really care what consenting adults do for sex and I don’t care what a business sells, as long as both are safe. But if a city spends millions of taxpayer dollars trying to turn a downtown into restaurant Disneyland or whatever it is they are trying to do with it, I would really like to know how The Naughty Teddy fits into their vision for the whole place.
Did the business lie on their application to the city, as has been claimed, or are they the victims of a prudish municipal mindset? I don’t know. Several tattoo parlors have already opened downtown, and the city is right behind that curve. Look for an agenda item concerning the classification of tattoo parlors on the next council meeting agenda.
Good to get this story back on track. It got hijacked almost immediately.
The point is that 40 years of micro-management have led us to this. Regardless of whether you or I like this sort of business, it’s every clear that the City doesn’t. Maybe this falls under the heading of “much remains to be done.”
Leave ’em alone. They be gone in no time.
BTW, that Townsend guy is a real problem. First the usual inane crap; then the hit on Nelson spoon fed by either Sidhu or the unions; now this.
And whenever the City or anyone else defends what has become downtown it’s always, always by reminding us of the Bad Old Days, when downtown was full of sleazy bars and pawn shops and..
Hey!
And second hand clothing stores…
Yeah, the funniest (saddest) thing was the old Salvation Army thrift store on Harbor that was pushed out. It had everything the Redevelopment bureaucrats wanted, including lots of pedestrian traffic.
Only problem was it was non-profit and catered to Mexicans and had to go.
But I bought some cool shirts there
I heard the City used to have a ban on churches in the downtown area.
Jesus, what maroons.
Well at least the aesthetic scene is looking up. Well, not up, exactly. More like sideways.