Lawsuit calls for the closure of Green Bay 'bawdyhouse' Jurors will decide whether an adult bookstore and motel is a public nuisance By Jessica La Plante News-Chronicle A two-day trial scheduled to kick-off Wednesday might read like the racy script of a soap opera when a Brown County jury is given an unusual question: Should an adult bookstore and motel on Main Street be labeled a "bawdyhouse" and subjected to potential closure under public nuisance laws? In a civil lawsuit filed last year, the state of Wisconsin accused A Main Attraction Book Store, 1614 Main St., of allowing lewd and lascivious behavior and at least one incidence of prostitution to occur on site. The complaint asks the court to declare the bookstore a public nuisance and invoke a seldom-used state statute to shut it down for a year. If the state can convince jurors of the store's alleged problems, a judge would get to chose from a broad range of sanctions in penalizing the bookstore. "There are varying degree of remedies that the court can order," said Brown County District Attorney John Zakowski. "If there were certain fixtures used as part of the lewdness, they can order those to be sold. The purpose is to abate the nuisance and to stop it from reoccurring." Before seeking closure, the state tries to work with the establishment to see if problems there can be corrected through increased security and safety measures, Zakowski said. "If you can prove that you can run a clean business, then we won't seek closure," Zakowski said. "If it's obvious that the only way to keep it clean is to shut it down, then we'll do it that way." The owner of the bookstore, William Cain, said he has been trying to clean up the store. "If there's a problem with a customer, they get chucked out, and I write (their names) down," Cain said, showing a log where he keeps a running list of unruly customers. Cain said he's always tried to run a clean a business and feels his store is an asset to the community. The basis for the lawsuit against A Main Attraction centers around nine arrests made during an undercover operation performed by Green Bay police in August and September of 2001. The investigation was launched in response to complaints police received, Zakowski said. Eight of the nine citations involved lewd and lascivious conduct, including customers masturbating in the store's movie booths, according to court documents. The remaining citation involved a Green Bay woman who attempted to sell sexual favors in the parking lot of the bookstore's adjoining Nite Owl Motel. The pending lawsuit is one of two civil actions Zakowski filed at the city's request against adult book stores. The other lawsuit, brought against Books N' Things Inc. in 2001, was resolved last week after the owners of the South Broadway shop convinced the state they had made progress to abate the nuisance. "They took a lot of preventative measures such as additional lighting, surveillance cameras and security personnel," Zakowski said, adding that "there's been a significant drop-off in the complaints." Before 2001, the last time the District Attorney's office was asked to close a business under public nuisance law was in 1991, Zakowski said. After investigations revealed the back rooms of a downtown adult bookstore were being used for prostitution, a judge ordered the business to close for a year, he said. Because the lawsuit is still pending, Green Bay police refused to discuss any complaints they might have received about A Main Attraction. However, Capt. Karl Fleury cited examples of how adult bookstores can impact the community. "In general, you have your health and safety issues, such as cleanliness (and disease), when people are soliciting each other for sex or masturbating in cubicles, or when there's drug activity going on in a parking lot," Fleury said. Zakowski stressed censorship was not a factor in the suit. "The nuisance actions are not an attempt to infringe upon anyone's first amendment rights, but they are an attempt to stop lewdness or prostitution from taking place in these public businesses," he said. Although the state has temporarily stayed its lawsuit against Books N' Things, Zakowski said he is still trying to work out a settlement with the Main Street shop. If the lawsuit does go to trial, Zakowski said most of the testimony will focus on activities that occurred in the store's "arcade" room, where customers can watch pay-per-view movies in private booths. Cain said most of his customers abide by common-sense rules of etiquette when using the booths. To spell out the store's policy, Cain posted a "no lewdness" sign in black lettering on the wall of the arcade room. The sign is not just a token effort towards nuisance prevention; Cain said he enforces the rule by performing walk-through inspections. Cain's store has been a natural extension of his family's businesses in his hometown of Kansas City, where they run a small chain of novelty shops and adult bookstores. When he relocated to the Green Bay 10 years ago, Cain decided to establish a branch of the family business in the a vacant storefront on Main Street. For the most part, he said the community has been accepting of his presence in Green Bay. Proprietors in his line of business have to deal with a great amount of public scrutiny. When any other business experiences an unruly customer, no one complains, so long as the shopkeeper handles the situation. "But when it happens at an adult bookstore, people want to take away your license," he said.