The WBIR Facebook page has become a forum for your questions and concerns, and one of those questions caught our attention Thursday, and we went looking for the answer.
John Shields wrote "Why is an adult bookstore on Lovell Road allowed to stay open when there is a Tennessee state law saying that such places can't be within 1000 feet of a church? There is a Menonite church on the corner across the street."
In fact, the Adult Video Super Store is about 790 feet from the Concord Mennonite Church, according to the county's mapping system. That is against state law. An adult business can't be within 1000 feet of a school, residential, or church.
So why it is here? The short answer is it was grandfathered in when the most recent changes to that law were put into place.
In 2004, when the store opened, it wasn't defined as an "adult" store, because the old ordinance based the definition on the percentage of adult merchandise sold. Stores bypassed the law, by selling big ticket items like motorcycles that skewed the percentage.
We reported back then that there was a lot of opposition and litigation. Both the state and county governments fought to change the law, so that now an adult bookstore is classified by the percentage of merchandise that's actually sold, not what's in the store for sell.
However, stores like the one on Lovell Rd. can stay because they were established before the law was changed. But if a new one tried to open in this same spot, it wouldn't be allowed.
Anytime you have a question, like this one, post it on our WBIR Facebook page and we may try to find out the answer for you.