Very Intimate Pleasures is trying to open up a large porn shop within 250 feet of a residential area in Berlin, CT. Citizens have protested, and the state has now joined city officials in efforts to get V.I.P. to comply with Berlin ordinances that forbid such a site to adult enterprises.
Today’s Hartford Courant reports:
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.