A due cause hearing for revoking a business license for the Tokyo Valentino adult retail store in East Cobb is being delayed until Oct. 27.
The hearing was to have taken place Tuesday night before the Cobb Board of Commissioners.
The county said that the delay is taking place because Tokyo Valentino lawyers have submitted open records requests for information.
The county notified Tokyo Valentino Sept. 8 it was suspending a business license granted in March because of what the Cobb Community Development Agency said was false and misleading information provided in the application.
Those details included the name listed on the application, 1290 Clothing Co. LLC, the store’s inventory and misrepresentations it said Tokyo Valentino owner Michael Morrison made to the news media about his intentions for the East Cobb store.
Tokyo Valentino opened in a vacant Mattress Firm store space in June without needing rezoning or any action from the county, other than a business license that was granted in March.
Considerable opposition came from nearby residents before the store opened, as first reported in May by East Cobb News.
Commissioner Bob Ott of East Cobb said at the time there wasn’t anything the county could to stop the store from opening.
Last month, he proposed an overhaul of the county’s sex shop ordinance that would further restrict such businesses, and those measures passed unanimously without much public discussion.
In June, the Marietta City Council revoked the business license of a Tokyo Valentino store on Cobb Parkway for 180 days, saying the store inventory didn’t match what was on its application.
Tokyo Valentino is appealing that decision in Cobb Superior Court.
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- East Cobb citizens speak out against new Johnson Ferry Road store
- Empty East Cobb retail building subject of sex shop concerns
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I’m curious. Does the County have any financial responsibility to pay this company for the expenses they incurred in building out the location AFTER getting their business license? It seems to me that if the rules of the game change after a company starts to act on what their legal license grants them, someone needs to pay them back.
BTW, nothing I say here means I endorse this business, and do wish it had never been licensed. My question is one of fairness to a legal business that was granted a license, and spent money based on that granted license, to see it all go away.
If they can do it to them, they can do it to anyone.
The contention is they misrepresented their application for a business license. Marietta shut them down for the same reason in July.