Resident: Sex shop to attract ‘sickos’
But New Haven mayor, neighbors realize store legal
Mayor Terry McDonald’s predictions in 2002 have finally come true. An adult novelty shop is slated to open its doors in New Haven.
And that has McDonald and neighbors who live behind the store frustrated and ready to act.
“These places bring predatory-type people in there, sickos, people we don’t desire to have here in our neighborhood and around the kids,” neighbor William Blanton said. “God forbid nothing ever happened to these kids.”
Blanton, a father of three, said 13 children ages 2 to 18 live in the nine houses that sit along a stretch of Old Maumee Road just behind what’s known as the Castle Building, 6623 Indiana 930 E., and home of the proposed Cupid’s Castle.
The Indiana secretary of state’s Web site states that the business incorporated April 30 and lists Nichole Fritz as the registered agent.
Fritz doesn’t have a listed phone number and could not be reached for comment.
The shop’s owners have already obtained an improvement permit and an occupancy permit from the city.
Under the property’s current commercial zoning, the adult shop is legal, McDonald said, and city officials had no basis to deny the permits.
Still, McDonald wants to discourage similar businesses from opening in New Haven and worries that Cupid’s Castle might draw in others.
“We have higher standards in our community than this,” he said.
The mayor plans to introduce an ordinance in June that would restrict locations of future sex-related businesses. The bill would resemble a similar ordinance debated in 2002. But that bill failed to get enough support from the city council.
The 2002 version would have ordered that adult businesses could not locate within 1,000 feet of a residential property, school, church, park, family restaurant, child-care center or bar.
Also, sexually oriented businesses – adult bookstores, adult theaters, escort services and nude-model studios – would be allowed to operate only between noon and midnight.
That ordinance would have essentially relegated these businesses to the back corner of Wayne Haven Industrial Park, south of Indiana 930.
City attorneys will review the 2002 ordinance to make sure that it complies with state or federal law, he said.
“We wouldn’t have this problem today if we would have passed that ordinance,” McDonald said.
But a new law wouldn’t curtail Cupid’s Castle, which hasn’t opened, Blanton said.
He’s threatened to videotape the license plates of patrons and post the numbers on the Internet, saying he wants to deter patrons and force the store to either go out of business or find a new home.
He plans to set out posters and buy billboards protesting the business.
New Haven is a tight-knit and religious community, and Blanton said he is glad to have good neighbors on his street.
“We want to try and keep it that way,” he said.
Mayor Tom Henry and the Allen County commissioners will welcome the award-winning Voices of Unity Youth Choir back to American soil in downtown Fort Wayne today.