Empty East Cobb retail building subject of sex shop concerns

A vacant retail building located in the heart of East Cobb has a new owner and is being renovated for a new use.

What that use may end up being has been the subject of a flurry of social media chatter in recent days about whether a sex shop is on the way.

Specifically, the subject of that speculation is that a new location of Atlanta-based Tokyo Valentino—with five adult retail stores in the metro area, including the city of Marietta—is replacing the former Mattress Firm store at 1290 Johnson Ferry Road, across from Merchant’s Walk. 

Cobb County business license records and a pending building permit application indicate plans for a retail store at that address called 1290 Clothing Co.

That business also has registered as a corporation with the Georgia Secretary of State’s office as 1290 Clothing, LLC, and lists the same registered agent as Cheshire Bridge Holdings, LLC, the parent company of Tokyo Valentino.

Michael Morrison, the Tokyo Valentino owner who has battled the city of Atlanta and other local jurisdictions for years over his businesses, is named in the 1290 Clothing Co. business formation documents as organizer and authorizer.

But he denied he is opening a new store in East Cobb.

In a public statement issued Monday, Cobb Commissioner Bob Ott said he has received more than 500 messages from citizens about the subject, and said there is nothing the county can do if a sex shop is coming to that building on Johnson Ferry Road.  

The half-acre on which it sits is zoned general commercial, the broadest of the commercial zoning categories in Cobb County, and includes most kinds of retail shops.

“Unfortunately, due to the zoning already in place on the property dating back to the late 70s, it appears that the retail shop meets all county code requirements,” Ott said in his message. “The U.S. Constitution doesn’t allow a county to come in and arbitrarily change existing zoning and/or add stipulations.”

He also said that contrary to some of the citizens’ queries he’s received, the matter will not come before the Cobb Board of Commissioners during its Tuesday regular meeting.

“That is not true,” Ott said. “There is nothing on the agenda tomorrow related to this store.”

A new business license was granted by the Cobb Community Development Agency on March 11 for 1290 Clothing Co., at 1290 Johnson Ferry Road, to an applicant named Tomika Hugley.

According to Cobb building permit records, an application for a renovation at that same address was filed on May 14 by Pembroke Real Estate Partners, LLC, in Miami.

That’s the company listed in Cobb Tax Assessors Office records as the Feb. 4 buyer of 0.53 acres and a building with 5,444 square feet at 1290 Johnson Ferry Road, for $1.55 million.

Building permit records indicate the renovation project is described as a “move-in only” for the tenant “1290 Clothing Co.” but no inspection has been conducted.

When contacted by East Cobb News Friday about whether he’s opening a store in East Cobb, Morrison said, “I have no idea what you are referring to.”

He said that “any applications that we submit for future stores have my name on them” and noted his store in Marietta, and that he was not involved with the 1290 Clothing Co. enterprise.

According to a Georgia Secretary of State’s business filing, 1290 Clothing Co. LLC  was registered on Jan. 21, 2020. The filing names Michael Morrison as the 1290 Clothing Co. organizer and authorizer, with an Atlanta residential address located off LaVista Road in DeKalb County.

East Cobb News has been unable to reach Hugley or Rebecca Crider, the registered agent for the new store on Johnson Ferry Road. Crider also is the registered agent for other Tokyo Valentino businesses, including the Marietta store, according to the Secretary of State’s office.

Many of the social media comments about the new Johnson Ferry Road store have come on a Facebook group, East Cobb Moms Exchange. East Cobb News has been contacted by some members of the group and other citizens, but none could provide further information. 

An online petition urging readers to contact Ott has received more than 1,000 signatures.

In 1998, the city of Atlanta first tried to shut down Morrison’s original store on Cheshire Bridge Road, which opened in 1995 and was called Inserection, because of its video booths, massage rooms and private bedrooms.

In 2014, Morrison—who served two-and-a-half years in prison for federal income tax invasion in the mid-2000s—rebranded his business Tokyo Valentino and opened new locations.

In 2019, the city of Atlanta again tried to shut down his Cheshire Bridge Road business. Last summer a federal appeals court in Atlanta ruled in favor of Morrison in his challenge to the city’s injunction against his business. 

Last year Morrison opened a store in Sandy Springs, also in an abandoned mattress store building, initially saying it would be a dancer clothing store under a different name.

The city claimed the store violated its merchandising code by having more than a quarter of its square footage space devoted to adult merchandise sales. 

Morrison, who also has had legal disputes with Brookhaven over his Stardust adult retail store, eventually complied in December by adding non-adult items at the Sandy Springs store, now called Tokyo Valentino.

There are two other Tokyo Valentino stores, on Northside Drive in Buckhead and on Pleasant Hill Road in Gwinnett County.

Ott said his staff visited the Tokyo Valentino store in Marietta, at 345 South Cobb Parkway, and said it’s strictly a retail store, unlike what’s on Cheshire Bridge Road. 

The Marietta location sells adult lingerie, sex toys, body art and jewelry, books and DVDs, smoking accessories and novelty gifts and is open daily from 10 a.m. to 2 a.m.

Pembroke Real Estate Partners, the new owner of the 1290 Johnson Ferry Road property, is a registered corporation in Florida, and whose principal is listed as Frank Koretsky. 

According to his personal website, Koretsky has added real estate investing and philanthropy to his business interests.

He has sold consumer electronics and video tapes and built up two adult video distribution companies, International Video Distribution and East Coast News, which “now exist as the largest entities in their respective industries.” 

Koretsky also is a holder in adult lingerie and sex toy businesses.

On Monday Ott reminded East Cobb residents of community opposition to a We Buy Gold store on Lower Roswell Road near Johnson Ferry Road several years ago. 

“There was a large outcry about that store coming to East Cobb,” he said. “Then, like now, there wasn’t anything the county could do because it met all the code requirements. That store is now an ice cream shop in large part because in a very short period it became obvious to the owners that the people weren’t interested in having that business in their community.”

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