Sex shop to open for business - 300 yards from school
Issue date: 29/04/08
Just a short stroll from Chatham Grammar School for Girls, a new shop is set to open selling a plentiful range of school uniforms.
But it is the last place parents will be shopping for their daughters' outfits.
Medway councillors last night approved plans to allow licensed sex shop Pillow Talk to open in Rainham Road in the town - just 300 yards from the grammar school's gates.
But despite no objections being raised by either the police or the council's director of culture, the opening of a shop stocking kinky toys, hardcore DVDs and 'schoolgirl' outfits has outraged parents and nearby shopkeepers.
Frilly lingerie can be displayed in the window of a sex shop - but not leather, rubber or PVC.
Councillors decided last night that Pillow Talk in Rainham Road, Chatham, could become the second licensed adult shop in the Medway Towns.
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Shop owner, Alan Butler, 60, was told his window displays - 300 yards from Chatham Grammar School for Girls - would be limited and he could not open on Sundays.
Six residents appeared at the meeting to object to the proposal despite hearing that neither the police nor the council's director of culture objected.
Roy Rogers said he objected to sex customers parking their cars outside his road, but Mr Butler replied that two of his customers actually lived there.
Wendy Purdy said: "We are not comfortable with a sex shop on our doorstep. Businesses should help the infirm and needy, not just a small amount of people."
One shopkeeper in the parade where the shop is situated objected to the plan but none of the residents in the flats above the mall opposed it.
Mr Butler told the councillors his customers were "ordinary men and women who want to improve their sex life."
Source : http://www.medwaymessenger.co.uk