Laura Holtman, a sales clerk at Sweet-N-Nasty, was working one day when she said a woman stuck her head into the store and ordered for the sex toys to be destroyed.
“She opened the door, stuck her head out and screamed, ‘Boston police, arrest this woman and burn all these sex toys,’” Holtman said.
Holtman is one of a handful of employees on Newbury Street whose stores were harassed by a woman claiming to represent the American Islamic Congress.
Niki Novak, the owner of Sweet-N-Nasty, said after some research, she found a woman whom Novak believes to be the same person who also went into Condom World and did the exact same thing, claiming to be from the AIC that just opened at 38 Newbury St.
Novak said she loves the protesters and any publicity is good publicity.
“I’ve always said over the years, ‘Come on down, picket, protest’ – it calls attention,” Novak said. “It’s the exact opposite of what they’re looking for because it calls attention to us.”
Sweet-N-Nasty opened 31 years ago. During those years, conservative groups and individuals have harassed the store about 20 times, Novak said.
Sweet-N-Nasty was the first adult shop that opened on Newbury Street, Novak said. The shop withstood not being able to advertise in local papers when it first opened, she said, and also received many angry phone calls.
Novak said in the years Sweet-N-Nasty has been open, it has paved the way for other adult shops such as Condom World to operate on Newbury Street, and they will not let one angry woman hinder all of their progress.
Koray Kotan, director of operations at AIC, said in an email that AIC does not even know the name of the person allegedly involved in the incident.
“If indeed the incident took place in the manner reported, this in no way, shape or form reflects our organization’s values and founding principles,” Kotan said. “AIC is a non-religious, civic organization committed to the values of responsible civic leadership and interfaith understanding.”
The AIC is a non-partisan, non-profit organization that is “dedicated to building interfaith and interethnic understanding and to supporting human and civil rights in Muslim majority countries,” according to the AIC website.
AIC employees, who asked to remain anonymous, said the woman’s description does not fit that of people who come to their meetings. They said they are planning to contact the shops that were harassed and send out formal apologies.
In the 1960s a series of Supreme Court decisions based on the First Amendment legalized sex shops in the United States. States, however, determine whether or not to legalize the sale of sex toys.
“You don’t have to shop there, you don’t have to come in,” Novak said. “If it’s not for you – and it’s certainly not for everyone, I understand that – that’s fine with me. That’s what America is all about.”
