The People vs. Erotic City

Erotic City's owners decided to shutter the video booths and close the strip club after the county unanimously voted in favor of the new ordinance in January.

Ron Boone says the video booths provided a service. "I think having them have a regulated place where they can go and hook up, if you would, and meet up is probably in the best interests of society. I personally have children, and I don't want to see things like that happen in parks or at the bathroom of Bannister Mall or whatever mall they're meeting at these days. I'm pretty confident that there's a large group of people out there who miss their little hangout."

After the booths closed, men posted messages mourning them on the Web sites Craigslist.com and Backpage.com. (Backpage.com is owned by The Pitch's parent company, Village Voice Media.)

"If this place is closed where can a hard dick get a little hard dick?" wrote a poster on Backpage.com.

"Is there some place with booths like they had, buddy booth?" asked another. "Just want to have my cock sucked. And if you are interested in wearing panties.... that's great."

Not everyone missed the Erotic City booths. "I have been there a few times, bunch of fat old nasty dudes standing around SMOKING! Ugh!" wrote "Benjamin" on Craigslist. "I know they need lovin' too, but isn't there anyplace where decent looking and acting people [can] check each other out?"

Reached for this story, Benjamin says guys would leave the doors to the video booths unlocked, hoping someone would drop in for a hookup.

"I had several people try to walk in on me," he says. "But it was not anyone that I was interested in."

On a Tuesday night in mid-February, the parking lot outside Erotic City is empty except for a couple of cars parked in front of the sex shop. A clerk works the counter while a scruffy-looking guy eating microwave popcorn watches anime.

The ATM is out of service. "Cash only. Sorry," reads a handmade sign on the cash register. A wooden shed door seals off the back hallway. A handwritten sign says the video booths and strip club are closed. When asked when they'll reopen, the clerk shrugs. A man in a suit and tie browses the racks of DVDs labeled for specific fetishes — Asian, Latina, big boobs, fat, pregnant, shemale, etc. — but leaves without buying anything.

Bins of vibrators and other sex toys sell for 50 percent off. A clothing rack offers "gently used" clothes. Back issues of Playboy sell for $2. The magazine racks look ransacked. Most of the inventory appears to have been marked down to sell off.

Times appear to be tough at Erotic City. The days of six-figure dividends for the shareholders are over. Lackey received her last dividend in December. "If it makes a profit," she says, "all that money is going to go to attorneys' fees."

The owners have hired their father's longtime attorney, Sharlie Pender, to review the recently passed Jackson County ordinance. "Obviously, a bad thing happened, and they wanted to make it as rigid as they possibly could," Pender says. "And I think they went a little bit overboard in some of the aspects." Pender declines to elaborate, saying he is only just beginning to review the new rules.

Pender says "without a doubt" the county's new ordinance targets Erotic City. If he's right, that could make the law invalid.

Ron Boone adds: "Mike Sanders and the Jackson County prosecutor . . . have taken it upon themselves to become the masturbation police."

The county will begin enforcement of the ordinance on July 1. The decision whether to grant an adult-entertainment license will be made by Ron Hilliard, chief of environmental health for Jackson County Public Works.

To get into compliance, Erotic City would require remodeling. The stage in the strip club needs to be raised. The doors on the video booths need to be removed. And the booths need to be set up so that a manager can see inside them at all times.

"It would be some major renovations," says Hilliard, adding that one of the store's owners told him Erotic City would not reopen the strip club or video booths. If that's the case, the business would not be subject to the county's new rules. "That would make them a retail establishment, and we would not regulate retail," Hilliard says.

According to Pender, the owners have yet to decide whether to file for the license.

Back at Erotic City, a man walks in and heads directly to the counter.

"Do you have the Number One?" he asks the clerk. The clerk reaches behind the counter and grabs a rainbow-colored box with bolts of lightning on it. The customer hands over $50.

About 10 minutes later, another guy comes in and asks for Number One. Another $50 sale.

Times are tough when the biggest moneymaker at Erotic City isn't dildos, nudie magazines or video booths. It's synthetic urine.