Things may have been quiet lately but they are far from resolved. Thomas Crossroads Starship Adult Novelties & Gifts CEO Kelly Rogers will have a mid-April business license appeal hearing in the county commission chambers before members of the Business Occupational Tax Rate and Appeals Committee. In diametric opposition to the county’s position, Rogers maintains that the quantity of sexually-oriented merchandise in the store will be below the 25 percent required by the ordinance in effect when he made the application, thus negating the stipulations of the new ordinance.

“This is the first step in the process. We have to go through this before we can pursue other legal avenues,” Rogers said Wednesday, referencing the appeal hearing.

Rogers was originally turned down for his business license in January after more than 300 residents packed the council chambers and demanded that commissioners face litigation rather than give in to having Starship operate in the Thomas Crossroads area. Before the Jan. 20 meeting ended, commissioners said they would deny the license because Starship had been determined to be a sexually-oriented business that is not permitted in the commercial area. Rogers said after the meeting he patently disagreed.

The issue evolved to its current status after commissioners later in January adopted ordinances on sexually-oriented businesses and obscenity. Rogers in response said that from the beginning of the process in late 2008 he had complied with county ordinances, including having less than 25 percent sexually-oriented merchandise, and should be granted a license to operate.

New ordinances notwithstanding, both Rogers and his attorney Alan Begner maintain that Starship is a store that will sell general merchandise that will carry some adult items and that it should be granted a business license.

The new ordinance on sexually-oriented businesses defines such a business as “an adult bookstore or adult video store,” and “adult cabaret,” and “adult motion picture theater” or a “semi-nude model studio.” The sexually-oriented business ordinance also cites numerous instances of case law where “adult bookstores and adult video stores (manipulated) their inventory and/or business practices to avoid regulation while retaining their ‘essentially’ adult nature.”

The obscenity ordinance is a first in Coweta. It specifies that it is unlawful to “knowingly distribute, possess with intent to distribute or offer or agree to distribute any obscene material or any device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs for any pecuniary value.”

Commenting on the passage of the sexually-oriented business ordinance in a Jan. 28 press release, the county said it replaces the former ordinance. One of the goals of the new ordinance is to “regulate... sexually oriented business through a narrowly tailored ordinance designed to serve the substantial government interest in preventing the negative secondary effects of sexually oriented businesses.”

The previous county ordinance stated that for a business selling adult-oriented items to be located in a zoning district other than Industrial it must have less than 25 percent of its business that includes those items. Rogers told The Citizen in December that his Thomas Crossroads location would comply with the ordinance.

But county attorney Nathan Lee in January said county staff had determined that adult-oriented merchandise would constitute more than the limit allowed by the ordinance.

“Based upon what his license said, (county staff) investigated, spoke with the owners and they believe that what they’ve been told and what they’ve seen, once it’s stocked, it’s going to cross the 25 percent threshold,” Lee said. “(County staff) have gone to other stores that were represented to be 25 percent stores.”

The appeals hearing will be held in the commission chambers April 13 at 3:30 p.m.