Opponents fight coastal adult shops.

Byline: Winston Ross The Register-Guard

NEWPORT - They've been mooned. Jeered. Once, someone threw a full cup of soda, with ice.

But protesters who have since January held a vigil outside the Spice Adult Video Superstore on Highway 101 say they will not be daunted - even after teenagers staged a counterprotest across the street, toting signs that read "We love porn."

"Most of the responses are positive," said Pastor Doug Smith of the Newport Church of the Nazarene, the leader of Operation Myrrh (named for the burial spice - a play on the Newport store's name). "We've had people clap; people with their thumbs up; people honk their horns or smile."

Smith sees himself as a warrior in a battle against the booming business of pornography, which is gaining a higher profile on the Oregon Coast than ever before. Spice is the second adult "superstore" to open along Highway 101 in the past year. A third shop, Wayne's Adult World, opened in Astoria in January 2005.

"There have been stores here that have carried a few pornographic videos, a couple of lingerie shops," Smith said of the Newport store. "But this is the first, full, 24-7, Wal-Mart style store complete with videos and an arcade."

Smith sees it as part of a larger trend. "The adult entertainment industry is thriving, in a huge way," he said. Last year, adult video rentals and sales topped $4.2 billion nationally, said Mark Kernes, senior editor of Adult Video News - up from $1.6 billion in 1992.

The time to draw the line is now, Smith said. "Several people have been rumoring that there's a strip club coming," he said. "If you don't do something, you give tacit approval to it."

Spice's owner, Greg Tyree, applied for a business license in December. Smith promptly gathered 180 signatures on a petition opposing the store and took it to the City Council's next meeting.

That's where porn scored its first victory. No ordinance in Newport allows the city to regulate sexually oriented businesses. What's more, Oregon is one of only two states in the country with no laws on the books regulating obscenity. And the state's constitutional protections of free speech are more liberal even than on the federal level, which may explain why Portland boasts more strip clubs per capita than any city in the country and has live sex shows.

Spice opened two days after Christmas. Protesters have rallied outside the store, hoping to scare off customers and raise awareness. They have held prayer walks and started a prayer chain, asking God each Wednesday to help Spice's proprietors and customers overcome their addiction to pornography.

There's plenty to be found inside Spice Adult Video, which occupies a former two-story tire factory and offers hundreds of adult videos, plus private video booths.

Clerk Mark Landry says the protesters aren't hurting business.

"The first thing people see when they drive past here is the big sign that says `porn,' ' Landry said, referring to the permanent billboard the churches erected on the property to the south that reads "Porn hurts everyone." "They'd drive right by the word `Spice,' ' he said. "I kind of feel bad for them. It's doing the opposite of what they intended."

Smith says that's silly.

"Obviously we're totally countering the message," he said. "I don't think we're advertising for people who would go there anyway."

A half hour to the north, a different kind of attack on adult entertainment has been simmering, since the "Imagine That" adult superstore in Lincoln City opened on Highway 101 a few months ago with 2,500 square feet of videos, an arcade, lotions, lingerie, life-size blow-up dolls and more. The business license went through without a snag, but the store has yet to get the city's permission to erect a sign on Highway 101.

And if Pastor Steve Waterman of St. Peter the Fisherman Lutheran Church gets his way, that sign won't ever go up. He filed one of four appeals to Imagine That's application for the sign.

"I'm not saying these people don't have a right according to Oregon law to operate a business," Waterman said. "But the vast majority of people in this community are not for this sign staring us in the face. It looks as though there may be a proliferation of these businesses opening up."

Don and Connie Shoemaker own a stained glass shop next door. Since Imagine That opened, "people don't want to appear to be even close to that porn shop," Don Shoemaker said. "They don't want to park in front of our store because it looks like they might be going next door."

Tough, says Imagine That manager Roger Minnicks. His store has the same right as any other business to put up a sign, he said - although he's not complaining about the attention he's gotten, thanks to the controversy.

"There's no such thing as bad publicity," Minnicks said with a chuckle. "But these people need to get over themselves. Alcohol, drugs, everything else does just as much damage. Making such a big stink about this sign and nobody brings up the issue that Lincoln County has the biggest meth problem in the state. There are more important things to be concerned about. Sex is like anything else. If you educate your children, they'll make wise decisions."

What makes Oregon unique is its hands-off approach to obscenity, says Randy Sharp, director of special projects at the American Family Association, a traditional values organization with 3 million online members. Voters have twice in the past decade rejected attempts to amend the constitution to allow porn to be regulated with "place and manner" restrictions, to keep adult stores away from schools or playgrounds.

Minnicks said the store's owner saw a market in Lincoln City, and that's why Imagine That opened there. Waterman suspects that the coast is appealing because of its growing tourism industry. "What drives the pornography business is anonymity," he said.

Whatever the reason, the controversy leaves local officials in a pickle. Do they approve routine building permit and sign applications for such establishments even when they know it will enrage some people? Or do they find a way to make life tough for business owners who have a legal right to set up shop?

"If we allow a bookstore to have a sign, we have to allow an adult bookstore to have a sign," said Lincoln City planning director Richard Townsend. "If we allow a bookstore within 500 feet of a school, we have to allow an adult bookstore within 500 feet of a school."

Newport's mayor says the issue will resolve itself.

"I'm not sure any of these shops will survive," Mayor Bill Bain said. "With the availability of merchandise in other venues, on the Internet, it seems to me like in a small community if they're hoping residents will support them, they're wrong. I don't see people lining up at the door to get in. And the location they picked is directly across the street from the Chamber of Commerce."