Spice Adult Video is the second adult “superstore" to open along U.S. Highway 101 in the past year. A third shop, Wayne's Adult World, opened in Astoria in January 2005.

“There have been stores here that have carried a few pornographic videos, a couple of lingerie shops," Smith said of the Newport store. “But this is the first, full, 24-7, Wal-Mart-style store complete with videos and an arcade."

Last year, adult video rentals and sales topped $4.2 billion nationally, according to Mark Kernes, senior editor of Adult Video News up from $1.6 billion in 1992.

Smith said it is time to draw the line. “Several people have been rumoring that there's a strip club coming," he said. “If you don't do something, you give tacit approval to it."

Spice's owner, Greg Tyree, applied for a business license in December. Smith promptly gathered 180 signatures on a petition opposing the store and brought it to the City Council's next meeting.

What's more, Oregon is one of only two states in the country with no laws regulating porn. The state's constitutional protections of free speech are more liberal than the federal level, which may explain why Portland boasts more strip clubs per capita than any city in the country and has live sex shows.

The Spice store opened two days after Christmas, accompanied by protesters who rallied outside, hoping to scare off customers and raise awareness.

“Most of the responses are positive," Smith said. “We've had people clap; people with their thumbs up; people honk their horns or smile."

“The first thing people see when they drive past here is the big sign that says porn," Landry said, referring to the permanent billboard the churches set up on the property to the south that reads “Porn hurts everyone.

A half hour to the north, the “Imagine That" adult superstore in Lincoln City opened on Highway 101 a few months ago with 2,500 square feet of videos, an arcade, lotions, lingerie, life-size blow-up dolls and more. The business license went through without a snag, but the store has yet to get the city's permission for a sign on Highway 101.

But if Pastor Steve Waterman of St. Peter the Fisherman Lutheran Church gets his way, that sign won't ever go up. He filed one of four appeals to Imagine That's application for the sign.

“I'm not saying these people don't have a right according to Oregon law to operate a business," Waterman said. “But the vast majority of people in this community are not for this sign staring us in the face."

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