Owner says he was losing $40,000 a month because city wouldn’t let him put up a sign
By DOUG NURSE / www.ajc.com
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Adult video store owner John Cornetta has closed the Love Shack in Johns Creek, but he has vowed to seek $1.7 million in damages from the city. “I couldn’t take the losses any more,” Cornetta said. “I’m still opening new stores in other states, and I still have pending court cases that I’m going to win.”
He said he was losing about $40,000 a month.
The store, located at States Bridge and Jones Bridge roads in the heart of the city, has been the object of scorn and dismay by many residents, and city efforts to regulate the store have generated piles of litigation.
Cornetta blamed the city’s unwillingness to give him a sign for running him out of business. The city has said it won’t give a sign permit or a business license for an adult business in an area not zoned for that.
The Love Shack opened just a couple of days before the city was born Dec. 1, 2006, which Cornetta argued meant he existed before the city and it couldn’t regulate him. After losing in Fulton Superior Court, Cornetta cleaned out all but a few of his adult items to become a non-adult store.
Cornetta said the city gave signs to other businesses that didn’t have business licenses.
“If the judge finds that they illegally caused a business to fail, they’re facing huge fines,” he said.
Cornetta and the city have cases pending in federal and state appeals courts.
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