For 11 years, Howard County officials and some residents have fought to close the jurisdiction's only adult bookstore.
They've passed legislation and waged costly legal battles, only to be thwarted time and again.
And now, despite a county law designed to force the Ellicott City store to move away from nearby homes or close, the Pack Shack appears poised to prevail again - maintaining its "Adult Video" sign along a busy stretch of U.S. 40, along with shelves of explicit movies, skimpy lingerie and sex toys.
The store's solution? Filling its basement and other little-used areas with a broad selection of used books that most customers may never see.
"I'm very bitter," said John Baronas, an Ellicott City resident who first protested the store in 1997 and fears that pornography spurs sex crimes. "Why, if [Rudolph W.] Giuliani can clean up Times Square, can't we get rid of an eyesore?"
Allen Harris, senior pastor of Columbia Presbyterian Church, has actively opposed the Pack Shack for years, but had lost track of its legal status.
"They sort of wear people down, continue to grind away," he said. "Pornography is a major destroyer of marriages in Howard County."
Even elected government officials seemed resigned to the outcome.
"It's very disappointing," said state Sen. James N. Robey, a Democrat who was county executive for eight years during the local government's battle with the store.
All that the county government has to show for the long struggle is a receipt for $187,690 in taxpayer money paid to reimburse the Pack Shack's legal costs after the state's highest court ruled in 2003 that the first county zoning law regulating adult bookstores was unconstitutional.
No one in county government knows who controls the store, since no owner is listed in state records. A store clerk identified himself as "Mark" but refused to name the owner during a reporter's recent visit. A "help wanted" sign hangs in the window. Barry Mehta, who owns the building at 8445 Baltimore National Pike, said he merely collects a rent check, and doesn't know the owner.
"I hardly go there at all," he said, adding his refrain for the past decade. "Right now, they have a lease. I'm not thinking of any different plans" for the building. He said the Pack Shack is responsible for maintenance.
Howard J. Schulman, the Baltimore attorney who has represented the store, said there was never a good reason for county government to go after the Pack Shack.
