Castle sex store making plans to open in Pike/Pine

Screen Shot 2014-11-30 at 2.14.48 PM Screen Shot 2014-11-26 at 9.41.51 AMWe might soon live in a world without a Broadway sex shop. CHS has learned that the Phoenix, Arizona-based company behind Castle Megastore is making plans to open in the heart of Pike/Pine in the space of a former tattoo parlor neighboring lesbian bar The Wildrose.

Company officials have not yet confirmed the plan or if they intend to close the existing Capitol Hill store where Castle president Mark Franks had told CHS in 2013 he wanted to move the shop due to public safety issues on Broadway and the poor maintenance of Castle’s building. By January 2014, the shop was still operating on Broadway and staff said the plan was to stay. Continue reading

Shop the Hill Store Spotlight: Babeland

babelandShop the Hill is an annual community collaboration featuring CHS, the Capitol Hill Chamber of Commerce and local merchants.

Shop the Hill/Shop Local on Capitol Hill
Friday, November 28th – Sunday November 30th

Name: Babeland
Year Opened on Capitol Hill: 1993

Tell us about your business: Babeland is known nationally as a friendly place to shop for sexy accessories, including bedroom toys, books and DVD’s. Since 1993, Babeland has been helping Seattleites have great sex.

What is the best thing about having a business on Capitol Hill? Capitol Hill independent business owners and customers are community-oriented folks from different walks of life. Being able to provide a sophisticated sex boutique for everyone in this vibrant and creative neighborhood is our pleasure.

Why is it important for people to shop local, especially around the holidays?
Shopping local, especially around the holidays, is important to the vitality and growth that makes our city unique and lets it continue to thrive. Knowing exactly what your money is supporting is important – it contributes to our collective success, health and happiness – while finding quality and one-of-a-kind gifts.

http://www.babeland.com

https://www.facebook.com/babeland.online
http://babeland.tumblr.com/FB_Profile2

CHS Pics | BUMP! 2014 brings out Halloween on Broadway

(Images: Alex Garland for CHS)

(Images: Alex Garland for CHS)

Soggy Seattle Halloweens require more than liquid inspiration. Sometimes you have to see another grown-up wearing a sexy Reno 911 costume in public to get your Hilloween juices flowing. Thursday night outside of, behind, over, under and around Neighbours, CHS spied some of the 2014 trick or treat fashions on display at the annual BUMP! Halloween party benefiting Gay City Health. Once again, CHS was a proud media sponsor. And the person in the AT-AT Walker costume? You’re an awesome Halloween nerd!IMG_4256

More pictures from Thursday night on Broadway are below. CHS will be out and about on Halloween as always to capture the scene and cover any breaking news. See something others should know about? Email CHS or call/txt (206) 399-5959. Continue reading

WANTED: SPD needs your help nailing Broadway sex toy bandit

Screen-Shot-2014-10-23-at-10.31.31-AM-141x300 (1)More than a month after his devious act, SPD detectives remain hot on the tail of the Broadway sex toy bandit — and are looking for your help putting the man behind the crime in a pair of non-GGG handcuffs. SPD posted this picture Monday of the thief they say stole more than $400 worth of stockings, lubricants and other personal items in a late September heist at Broadway sex emporium Castle Megastore:

SPD detectives are still in search of a man who fled a Capitol Hill adult emporium last month with $400 worth of stockings, lubricants and other personal items, and now police need your help identifying him. Detectives have a pic of the bawdy bandit, but don’t yet know his name. If you do, please call our detectives in the East Precinct Burglary/Theft Unit at (206) 684-5733.

CHS reported details of the heist here:

Just before 10:20 PM Saturday, SPD units were called to Broadway’s Castle Megastore after a man reportedly ran from the retailer carrying an armload of expensive sex toys. The man was last seen jumping into his white Chevy parked at the curb in front of the store and speeding off northbound with employees in pursuit.

 

Sex toy bandit hits Broadway ‘megastore’

"Castle Superstore" (Image: Tatiana Gill via Flickr)

“Castle Superstore” (Image: Tatiana Gill via Flickr)

Police are on the hunt for a man who stole an armful of sex toys worth hundreds of dollars from a Broadway boutique Saturday night.

Just before 10:20 PM Saturday, SPD units were called to Broadway’s Castle Megastore after a man reportedly ran from the retailer carrying an armload of expensive sex toys. The man was last seen jumping into his white Chevy parked at the curb in front of the store and speeding off northbound with employees in pursuit.

The merchandise has a value of around $500, employees told police. There were no immediate arrests.

CHS believes the Saturday night crime is the largest Capitol Hill sex toy heist since 2011’s ripoff at Babeland in which a vibrator thief made a grab and dash run with a pile of sexual health devices including a one-of-kind “pre production model” that had been on display inside the E Pike store.

UPDATE 9/26/14: SPD’s report on the incident is finally out and it — either fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your thoughts on such things — includes an inventory of the purloined goods:

A man spotted fleeing a Capitol Hill adult emporium last Saturday with nearly $400 worth of intimate items has aroused the attention of East Precinct theft detectives. Staff at the Castle Adult Megastore—located near Broadway and E. John Street—called police around 10:20 p.m. and reported they had been making recommendations to the man inside the store when he turned and fled with a veritable menagerie of merchandise, including a “Heavenly Dolphin” and a “Rabbit.” In addition to the aforementioned marital aids, the suspect made off with “athletic socks,” several pairs of hosiery, personal lubricant, a “Hercules” gentleman’s pump, and “hottie police fishnet stockings,” which are decidedly not department-issue. After running out of the store, the suspect—described by witnesses as a white male in his late 40s with black hair, wearing a grey shirt and khakis—sped away in a white SUV, but employees were able to get a look at the suspect’s license plate number, which they provided to officers. East Precinct Burglary/Theft detectives are now working to identify the suspect so they can gently whisper him his Miranda rights.

Filmed sex assault alleged in Capitol Hill gay bathhouse last year

steamworkssuitA man who claims he was drugged, sexually assaulted, and filmed by a group of men in a gay bathhouse on Capitol Hill last summer has filed a lawsuit against one of his accused assailants. The case spilled out of the courts over the past year with a series of “wanted” posters documenting allegations against the alleged attacker that have appeared on Capitol Hill utility poles. Continue reading

‘Harder, more extreme,’ The Crypt helps keep the kink in Capitol Hill

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Manager Shawn Allen Hall is ready to serve (Images: CHS)

Manager Shawn Allen Hall is ready to serve (Images: CHS)

Seattle Pride celebrates the inspiring progress our city and nation have made in furthering LGBTQ rights. It’s also a time when an already sex-charged Capitol Hill turns things up a notch. Before, during, after — The Crypt serves as one of its top purveyors of kink.

Since opening here in the 1980s, The Crypt has served as the adult’s adult store on Capitol Hill. With items to induce electric shocks and rods to be inserted in the most shocking of places, products at The Crypt can really stretch the meaning of the word “toy.”

“We’re definitely harder, more extreme than other stores,” said manager Shawn Allen Hall, not far from the gagged mannequin hanging from a sex swing that greets customers at the front door. On the other hand, the seen-it-all staff are anything but hard and extreme. “We just want to make sure you feel as comfortable as possible,” Hall said. Continue reading

Seattle’s only Dominic Holden explores sex and politics on a Capitol Hill stage

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(Image courtesy Dominic Holden)

In a 2012 story for Capitol Hill-based The Stranger, writer Dominic Holden pretty much confirmed something many LGBTQ people and their allies had long suspected: Top donors to anti-gay marriage campaigns are really obsessed with the butt sex.

In a newly written monologue, aptly titled Talking Shit, Holden is combining his reporting on anti-gay marriage campaign donors with musings on the hypocrisies of those on both sides of the gay marriage debate, as well as personal stories of sex and politics. The two-day run at the 19th and Mercer Washington Ensemble Theatre begins Saturday night. You can purchase the $10 tickets here.

“The overarching theme here is that there is a crusade between the moral left and moral right to attack each other and expose each other, but it’s not like their crusades are as virtuous as they seem to be,” Holden told CHS. “The Christian right want to characterize gay people as drug using, porn watching, anal sex having freaks. And to be fair, I’m all three.”

Continue reading

Pikes/Pines: The sexy songs of Capitol Hill spring

Red-winged blackbirds, start singing early, sitting high on perches around wetlands.

Possibly, you don’t believe it. Possibly, you are still huddled next to your ott lamp, praying for July.

It is officially spring.

This designation means something, yes, but the cut and dry nature of a date to start a season is for our benefit. Seasons don’t really come on one day and stop on another, of course. They are a continuum that may fluctuate from year to year. The birds certainly know this.

Go ahead, stick your head outside, more birds are singing now than two months ago. When I get up around dawn, there’s at least five species of birds signing loudly on my city block: American robin, dark-eyed junco, Bewick’s wren, song sparrow, and black-capped chickadee. What are they being so noisy about and why now? Continue reading

Broadway’s only sex shop, Castle Megastore is staying put

Last summer when Castle was planning a move that never materialized.

Last summer when Castle was planning a move that never materialized.

In August CHS reported that Castle Megastore was planning to move off Broadway to a new Capitol Hill location. It didn’t. In fact, one employee told CHS Thursday that the Arizona-based sex and costume shop is expanding its inventory.

Last year Castle president Mark Franks said he wanted to move the shop due to public safety issues on Broadway and the poor maintenance of Castle’s building. Franks also said that graffiti and public urination were keeping customers away.

A spokesperson for the company said that Franks did not want to comment on why the shop never followed through with its moving plans, but the Broadway staff assured CHS Castle is staying put.

A real estate listing posted in August for the The Broadway Center claimed Castle and the Highline would both be vacating the building. The building owner, Tacoma-based Sunway B.C., LLC., has not changed since 2005.

Castle has operated out of the Broadway and E John building for 10 years. The adult boutique has 15 other locations in the northwest and southwest that specialize in selling sex toys and lingerie.