No love for Love Stuff

The owner of the Kalli’s Presents Love Stuff chain plans to sue after the Sardis City Council this week denied a business license for his newest planned location.

Ross Winner, owner of five stores across the state, said he’s been through legal obstacles before when cities were reluctant to issue licenses because they didn’t like the type of business he operated.

Love Stuff is a chain of what Winner describes as “stores for adults.” The store carries lingerie and related items up front — and, in a restricted entry area, the kind of items most people would refer to as sex toys.

He has leased the old ABC store on U.S. Highway 431 just south of Boaz. He’s been in talks with the city for about six weeks, he said, and didn’t seem surprised that the council turned down the license.

Winner said he’s going to continue getting the store ready to open, and seek a license again. If he’s denied, he plans to take the city to court.

Sardis City’s city attorney, Jack Floyd, said municipalities have the right to deny licenses to businesses they believe are not in the best interest of the city.

“In this case, they didn’t elect to approve the license,” Floyd said.

The applying business owner then would have the right to go to state court to ask for a review of that denial. The court will look at whether the city had valid reasons for denying the license.

Floyd said Sardis City is a conservative community, and a religious one. He said he believes the council acted in accordance with the community’s wishes on the business license application.

If the issue were put to a vote of the people of Sardis City, Floyd said, he would expect a vast majority of the citizenry would agree with what the council did.

Winner said as he understands it, two council members are ministers, and three councilmen and the mayor are church deacons.

He said it’s not religious consideration that should determine the council actions — it’s the law. He said his stores follow Alabama law and are legitimate businesses. He said he’s never had an arrest for pornography, prostitution, drugs or any of the other offenses people might believe to be associated with an “adult” business.

Winner said he’s been a businessman for 50 years. If his stores violated the law, he wouldn’t have five stores across the state.

“I’ve been married for 40 years. I have three kids and eight grandkids. All my kids and their spouses work for me,” Winner said.

“We have family values and Christian values,” he said. “People don’t think I have Christian values because I own stores for adults. That pisses me off.”

Winner said he and his employees don’t call the products they sell sex toys, and, as required by the Alabama Anti-Obscenity Law, people who visit the store must show identification proving they are 21 or older to enter the restricted area and must sign saying they are purchasing the “marital aid” type products sold there for medical, scientific research or educational purposes.

“We turn people down every day who won’t sign,” Winner said.

Winner said he decided to locate a sixth store in the area after tracking sales and noting the amount of business in the Oxford and Hoover stores that came from Guntersville, Albertville, Boaz, Attalla and Gadsden.

“We check IDs on everyone who comes in,” he said, and he knows where business comes from. He said he concluded he was losing business by not having a location in the area. Gadsden was too close to the Oxford store, he reasoned, and ideally, he was looking at the Boaz area.

He said he found the property and then found it was in Sardis City, rather than seeking out a Sardis City site.

Winner said Sardis City’s mayor told him he didn’t believe one of the city’s residents would set foot in the store if it opened, then backtracked and said he could think of maybe one.

“If he really believes that’s true,” Winner said, “they should give the license. Then I’d be out of business in a month.”