LOS ANGELES — Ralph Albrecht, owner of the chain of Suzie’s adult stores, passed away today at 82 years old.
CalExotics President and CEO Susan Colvin told XBIZ Albrecht — whom she knew for about 30 years — was a man that strongly believed in First Amendment rights and fought many battles since opening his first adult store in 1969.
“He loved life and was grateful for everything he had,” she said. “Ralph was always a person who helped people — he hired people that needed a second chance, he helped people to help themselves.
“His legacy will continue as his charitable foundation, which will continue to help so many people. The fact that he’s donated millions over the last 10 years and all of the stores’ profits go to charity. I think that’s an amazing legacy that’s hard to beat. He did well in his lifetime and he often said he was grateful for all of his accomplishments and being able to provide for his family that he wanted to help others.”
Suzie’s is a chain of adult superstores and smaller shops with locations in California, Hawaii and Nevada, operating under parent company Janra Enterprises.
Colvin said that though Albrecht will be dearly missed, Suzie’s general manager Dave Baitinger will continue in his role and the stores will continue to operate as they always have — including donating profits to charity. “Ralph set it up so that all the stores would continue to donate to his charities,” Colvin said.
“He was a wonderful man. He was really one-of-a-kind; he was tough enough to fight major legal battles to operate his stores, but as tough as we was he was also really wonderfully generous. Everyone that did business with him, he was good to. He was an extremely honorable person. ”
