www.nashvillescene.com article

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Will sex sell at Opry Mills?

Opry Mills, the giant shopping mall that Gaylord officials continue to gamely insist will replace Opryland Theme Park in the hearts and minds of Nashvillians when it opens this spring, will soon be the home to the self-proclaimed "World's Largest Adult Bookstore."

The Metro News Adult Book Store, whose sign near its Fifth Avenue South location has been a Nashville interstate landmark for the better part of a decade, recently announced it had leased 30,000 square feet of retail space in Opry Mills and would move its operation there.

"It's a great location for us," one of the owners of the sex emporium said. "A lot of our trade is tourists and the kind of all-American people that Opry Mills will attract. I can see a lot of people walking straight over from the Opry to buy stuff from us."

In some ways, the move represents a return to the Opry experience of the early 1970s, when Opry-goers to the old Ryman Auditorium were forced to negotiate their way past sex shops on Lower Broad.

Opry Mills officials were coy about the deal.

"We're in the business of leasing space to businesses that want to be at our development," one Gaylord source said.

As to the question of how a sex merchant would fare located among the cut-rate clothing and discounted flatware that is the stock-in-trade of malls such as Opry Mills, the official would say only, "We'll see how they do."

For their part, employees of Metro News say they'll be happy to move to the suburbs.

"It's nice out there," one clerk said between ringing up sales of hard-core tapes one recent afternoon. "This neighborhood around here is actually kind of seedy."

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cjc

[This message was edited by Joe Casey on 07 January 2000 at 05:51 AM.]

He worked the Merchants Hotel with one steady Picker, Harley Alsup on Bass, and between the two of them, they managed to get a Guitar Player or Steel man, + a drummer from some of the best road bands in the business 6 nights a week. That and Deemans Den were the places to be in Nashburg in the Early 70's. All of the pickers came in to Jam and it was an open policy, If you could handle it, you were allowed to pick. After the Opry moved in 1974, Bill moved to a place in Donelson for a while and alway got a lot of the Opry people in there on Friday and Sat Nights. After that He moved to Lonzo and Oscar's Supper Club in Madison. I got a pretty good education in music from sitting in on Bass with Bill Stepp and got to pick quite a few hours with the finest Country pickers in the world. Some nights you could walk in one of the places I mentioned and you could actually feel the talent in the air so thick you could reach out and touch it. Man, there were some heavy duty pickers around there then.

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cjc

All the more reason to keep them there.

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Sj
"The Carolina Wildman"

[This message was edited by Sleepy John on 08 January 2000 at 07:29 AM.]

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cjc

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Sj
"The Carolina Wildman"

[This message was edited by Sleepy John on 08 January 2000 at 09:00 AM.]

So where do I have to go for dirty books when I'm in town?