The ordinance was approved by Greenwood’s City Council four hours after the store, XO Paradise, opened. The amended ordinance regulates businesses that sell items and products for use in specified sexual activities.
“The store’s owner thought it was very unfair of the city to take such an action based on rumors,” reporter Paul Bird of The Indianapolis Star said. “She was displeased with the way the city went about it. Nobody bothered to contact her.”
Bird said the store’s owner, Michelle Kuntz, owns another business that sells marital aids. Rumors from two local churches had circulated that Kuntz planned to sell sex toys at the new store on Main St., which was within a prohibited zone.
“The new ordinance forbids the sale of sex toys within 1,000 feet of a church, a school, a residence or a park,” Bird said. “She is not selling sex toys in the new store. She is in compliance [with the new ordinance] and she said she never intended not to be.”
In spite of this, Greenwood’s Mayor Charles Henderson berated Kuntz at a City Council meeting the night she opened the store.
“It is not the kind of business we want,” Henderson said at the well-attended meeting, “and I hope you are offended enough not to open. I don’t think the intention is to sell lingerie.”
Council member Keith Hardin said the new ordinance was not aimed at Kuntz.
XO Paradise is not listed in Greenwood’s phone directory, however.
