In a situation similar to Apremont Triangle in Springfield, a porn shop with viewing booths has become a locus of prostitution and vagrancy in a Washington, DC neighborhood. The Hill reported in March:
On Feb. 19, The Washington Post ran three stories lamenting the unrealized promises of revitalization made by proponents of the publicly financed Washington Convention Center… the surrounding neighborhood can’t shake its longstanding blight…
Anyway, commercial business is an essential part of revitalizing a neighborhood. But some kinds of businesses don’t fit the gentrification scheme, like Fun Fair Video on 5th Street N.W., which sells porn…
The Washington Examiner reported on Feb. 21 that since 2000, the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs has done all it can to shut down the store because it’s located in a no-porno zone. Fun Fair has fought back hard with lawyers…
[Local Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Mark] Dixon says the video store isn’t simply unseemly — it has a concrete negative impact. “They’re attracting prostitution in the area,” he says, also noting that the store attracts bums.
See also:
Gazette: “Porn store’s viewing booths raise stink in Springfield”
Erica Walch, a neighborhood resident and former president of the civic association testified that she has witnessed prostitution almost daily in the Apremont Triangle and that Capital Video’s store creates an atmosphere of ‘lawlessness in the area.
”If the neighborhood is going to be developed, it has to go,’ said Michael Tuckey, a neighborhood resident and the current president of the civic association after Monday’s hearing.
Springfield Republican Reports on Apremont Triangle Mailing about Amazing.net
“Residents…told The Republican that they believe the store draws prostitutes as well as vagrants who publicly urinate on their properties….
“David B. Panagore, chief development officer for the Springfield Finance Control Board, agreed with an assertion by Tuckey [Michael M. Tuckey Sr., president of the Armoury-Quadrangle Civic Association] that a sex-oriented video and products store discourages companies that could revitalize the area from moving in.”
Capital Video Springfield: Secondary Effects Extend to Prostitution; Actions the City Can Take
[Fred Rowe:] Outside, we have both male and female prostitutes standing across the street, by our building, and we have a vacant lot that we use for parking. They stand there, and they wait for [customers] to come out, and they solicit them, and they try to take them out behind our building, and do their business. It’s unbelievable.
Capital Video’s Springfield Porn Shop Repels Sought-After Businesses
“The [potential grocery] market is really the key, we think, to the whole building. The people that come, the market operator–their issue is number one, the Video Expo [Amazing.net] across the street, and the crowd that you see around it…”
Testimony in Minneapolis: Secondary Effects Around Adult Theaters; Police Suggest that Concerned Citizens Move Away
Then it happened again where I was going to Wendy’s Hamburger Shop. Instead of asking me if I was a prostitute, he asked me how much I cost. You are just in a position when you think, when is this going to stop? Is it because I live close to these pornography shops that this continues to happen?
The third time that it did happen to me, I am very firmly convinced that it has a very strong significant high correlation with the pornography. The third time it was another…businessman, but at this time the man was around the age of 50. Rather than ask me if I was a prostitute or how much I cost, he walked right up to me and said, “You are the dancer from the Belmont, aren’t you? I saw you a couple nights ago. You really did a good job.” You don’t know what to say…