The Atlanta Sex Toy Magnate Who Can’t Stop Picking Fights
THE 52-YEAR-OLD OWNER of a small chain of Atlanta-area adult stores is clad in a tight royal blue short-sleeve shirt, partially unbuttoned, with a silver necklace that says “REGRETS” dangling between his pecs. He is regaling me with stories of the expensive legal fights that have defined his life, most of which revolve around selling sex toys and porn. If the city of Atlanta had its way, the store we’re sitting in, Tokyo Valentino, would be closed. In fact, it would have never existed in the first place.
And if the nearby city of Brookhaven, Georgia, had its way, Michael S. Morrison would be in jail right now. Instead, he’s sitting across from me, temporarily out of sight of the shop’s abundant collections of inflatable prostate stimulators, clitoral suction devices, and vibrating cock rings, loudly insisting that he was never in cahoots with the mobster John Gotti Jr.
His Brookhaven store has been shuttered for zoning violations: The city bureaucracy says they carry too many sex toys and too much porn in an area not zoned for an adult business. His Marietta and East Cobb stores had their license revoked for the same reason, although they remain open. (The cities actually paid inspectors to buy double-headed dildos and lesbian pornography, to provide proof in court.) The store we’re sitting in is itself in the midst of a fight to stay open.
Morrison sued the city of Atlanta in 2015, a lawsuit that is still ongoing, arguing that its adult business zoning ordinance is overly broad. The statute defines an adult bookstore as “having a significant portion of its stock in trade, books, magazines, and other periodicals, films, videos, or other media or items which are distinguished or characterized by their emphasis on matters depicting, describing or relating to ‘specified sexual activities’ or ‘specified anatomical areas.’” One of Morrison’s lawyers, Cary Wiggins, points out that “a medical school textbook shop” could be banned under that regulation.
Morrison has
