SUMMERVILLE – Some neighbors were not happy when they heard the “high-end lingerie store” move into the small business park on Old Trolley Road.
Now, after Badd Kitty initially began selling toys, lubricants and underwear from the space occupied by endocrinologists, at least one neighbor hoped they could get along well.
“Why don’t you find something positive? Why not find the benefits of it?” said former church cleric Brad Richardson, which is a few doors from the 622 Old Trolley Road store in Summerville.
“If a married couple can go to Badd Kitty and make their marriage better, it will make their children better. If their family is better, we will live in a better city, so we are like ‘Why do you want to fight it?'” he said.
Also located at James Island and West Ashley, Badd Kitty is the only “adult” store in Dorchester County.
According to Summerville spokeswoman Mary Edwards, because it does not sell books, magazines or movies that depict “specificity activities,” Badd Kitty does not meet the town’s current definition of adult institutions.
Regional manager Jill Bush said that, like all other local Badd Kitty stores, it is classified as a general business.
“Some stores need to be in industrial areas,” she said. “They have a room at the back, you can see porn, they sell everything. We mix with them, that’s why we are famous. I want to change it.”
She said that most of the goods in her store, such as lubricants and sex toys, are also sold in pharmacies and department stores.
“They used to sell vibrators in the middle of the mall,” she said.
Even so, most of its neighbors in small brown brick commercial and retail centers refused to comment or refuse to respond to requests for comment, including music lessons, ballet and their own pottery workshops.
Some pointed out that one of the business owners wrote an article on the Positively Summerville Facebook page in April. The woman received a lot of criticism when she complained that the store was not suitable for a family-oriented business. She eventually deleted the post.
“We just don’t want to go back to this again through public comment,” one owner said, adding that the business is fairly calm, but there are still concerns that it will attract customers.
Bush smiled and said.
“We didn’t let most people think of the customers we do,” she said. “We got your neighbor.”
She said that many customers will accept the doctor’s recommendation.
“People are not aware of medical aspects in this area,” she said. “Healthy sexual health is very important in marriage.”
Summerville’s family consultant Sherri Young said the store – on a busy street with a big pink and black logo – reflects a changing attitude towards sex.
“We are becoming more open and accepting,” she said. “Many people think that there is nothing to be ashamed of.”
But the opening of the store also allowed Dorchester officials to think of the possibility of a store in a fast-growing county, and the county council is now rewriting a 1986 decree to make it more realistic.
On Monday, the Commission’s Planning, Development and Construction Committee held a public hearing and recommended that the Council update the regulations to replace the “adult bookstore” with the “adult novelty store” to reflect the goods currently sold by the store.
The regulations will be finalized next month.
“I mistakenly and clearly think that this is a book and something new,” Chinnis said of the existing decree. “This clarifies what I will tell you, I have been thinking about it all the time.”
City Councilman David Chinnis said that, like Berkeley and Charleston County, the regulations still restrict stores to industrial areas.
Richardson, whose 70-member church has been on the site for Saturday and Sunday for about six months, said he is trying to plan a fall event that he hopes will include all his neighbors.
“What an ironic thing, church activities sponsored by Badd Kitty,” he said. “But the church is all about love and people. I just want to create an atmosphere where we can meet God anywhere. Let us be in an atmosphere where we can all get along.”
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