Source: romanticdepot.com/brooklyn
Neighbors are moaning about a new Clinton Hill sex shop
The location of a new Romantic Depot has aroused the concern of locals, who have so far failed to mount a successful campaign stop it
A new sex shop in Clinton Hill is eliciting some loud moans from neighbors for its controversial location.
Romantic Depot, which sells your usual array of cheeky sex toys, opened in February at the intersection of Fulton Street and Washington Avenue, marking the chain’s first Brooklyn location. Neighbors are less than titillated, as the risqué store is on a busy street near schools and churches.
“It’s disgusting. My church and another church is on that block. NO RESPECT,” one unsatisfied neighbor wrote on Facebook. Another added the store in “totally the WRONG PLACE!”
The shop’s owner Glen Buzzetti defended it, telling the BKReader that it’s following the correct zoning laws because it doesn’t sell explicit viewing materials, such as DVDs, and doesn’t have nude dancing like a strip club. The shop itself is, well, semi-hard to spot because its exterior boasts a giant a mural of Notorious B.I.G. and has no explicit imagery.
Romantic Depot isn’t “seedy,” he said. Its employees, which are majority female, are trained “sexperts” to help people with their sexual experiences.
“Thirty years ago, 95 percent of the customers were men buying pornography. But, in 2022, 90 percent of the customers are females, couples and friends of all gender identities,” Buzzetti said.
Neighbors aired their concerns this week at a community meeting, where things came to a head. “This is just not in keeping with the way the neighborhood is evolving, it’s just in poor taste,” one person told Brooklyn Paper.
However, since the shop isn’t operating illegally, concerned residents will likely just have to deal with it. “I understand this business is not particularly accepted. But if they’re not doing anything illegal, then at the end of the day, they have a right to be there just like the deli across the street or the restaurant next door,” said Christina Chavez, executive director for FAB Fulton, a business improvement organization.
And to be sure, some neighbors don’t seem to mind at all. “We want it. What’s wrong with being sexual,” a Clinton Hill resident told the newspaper. “You don’t see nothing crazy outside, you don’t see no booty, you don’t see no nudity. So what’s wrong?”
