In the lead-up to Valentine's Day, I blogged about the demise of Wink, the city's sex shop for women. Terry Richardson, Wink's former landlord, essentially told me that the shop failed because of owner Elizabeth Rich's erratic business practices; Richardson suggested she had abandoned the place. Some who read the post -- including Rich herself -- felt this was unfair to Rich. I believe the term "pile of shit" was used. That hurts.
Earlier this week, I finally talked to Rich (though I didn't make note of this in the original post, I actually had tried to contact her back then). After the jump, read her side of the story. But if you want the short version: I was right.
I figured Rich would be concerned that she's been portrayed as a crappy business owner. Not so much. Rich admitted moving to Minnesota last May with the intent to run Wink remotely. So, I asked, did she keep erratic hours or advertise events that didn't happen?
"I can't comment on what happened after I left," Rich said.
That's fair. What about while you were there?
"I know that we did our best considering I'm a first-time store owner," Rich said. "The best-laid plans don't always follow through. We did try to serve the public as best we could and that we did a very successful job being a sex-positive influence in Kansas City."
What about the move to Minnesota? Rich said she moved there to take a fellowship at a public policy think tank, Minnesota 2020. Here's her bio. She was offered the position in early April but had been pursing the fellowship since February (when she attended a lecture by the head of the think tank). So it's not like she moved up there just because of her boyfriend, like Richardson claimed.
In Rich's words: "Actually, my boyfriend is up here, and that's why I was up here in the first place and able to hear that conversation. But I'm very committed to my mission. He was up here prior to that. I wouldn't have been up here to hear it otherwise, to be fair."
Regarding Richardson, Rich still has nothing but respect. "She's a lovely person and I think she's an institution in Kansas City for the work she does with small independent businesses."
As for the future, once Rich is finished with her work up north, she hopes to return to Kansas City and continue working in sex-positive ways. "I think Kansas City is really unique because you have two states, and it really needs a unified sex-education policy."
I read all these statements back to Rich just to be sure I wasn't misinterpreting them. She confirmed them. At the end of our interview, Rich apologized if she'd been "abrupt" in her earlier responses.
"I don't plan on opening the store again," Rich said. "What I've learned through all this is that I'm very committed to education and public policy, but I'm not a businesswoman at all."
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