FERNDALE – If absence makes the heart grow fonder then the reopening of Chosen Books should fill its loyal customers' hearts with glee. It's been more than six months since Chosen left its longtime home in Royal Oak for points unknown. The search for a new site and a lengthy negotiation with Ferndale officials once they decided to relocate there caused all the store's merchandise to remain in storage and, for a time, left the store's future uncertain.
But now Chosen is back in business and operating out of sizeable 2,500 square feet store located at 1956 Hilton. The store is open seven days a week from noon till 10 p.m., and a visit to the store will show you that much has changed.
To comply with the city's requirements, the new Chosen can only feature adult merchandise in 20 percent of the store's space. So a separate room was constructed to feature the store's massive video collection – which now consists primarily only of DVDS – and adult magazines.
"We're going to start getting straight DVDs in there, too," said Joe Karasinski, who has owned the store since his son John Cook, one of Chosen's original co-owners, died of AIDS in 1993. "It takes time and money and we couldn't do it all at once with all the moving and everything being in storage for six months."
The expansion beyond being merely an adult merchandise store actually took Chosen back to its original roots. Cook, his personal partner Bill Ashley and Paul Bruce, a business partner, opened Chosen in Detroit in 1981. Long before there was an Affirmations, the store became an unofficial lgbt community center, and Cook even operated a hotline out of the shop for some time.
Through the years as the internet and corporate chains rained chaos upon independent booksellers, the store became known primarily for their adult video rentals. High rents pushed the business out of Royal Oak, and once the decision was made to move to nearby Ferndale, local residents began mounting an opposition.
A foot stomping good time
At a January meeting, City Councilman Mike Lennon expressed his displeasure at Chosen's move into the city, echoing the sentiments of several residents in attendance.
"I'm not too happy about … the adult store theme," Lennon said. "We need to stomp our feet a little bit, [but] don't think right now there is anything we can do about this."
Lennon promised to monitor the store to make sure the adult content does not begin to spill over the 20 percent restriction. One resident, Thomas Gagne, offered to help periodically count the merchandise and keep track of its positioning. He later wrote about the issue on an online blog, blaming it on the city's recent passage of a non-discrimination ordinance.
"Our reward for advertising tolerance for sexual preferences and allowing sexual preferences to define our city is our city's attractiveness to businesses catering to the prurient," he wrote. "And why shouldn't businesses catering to sexual proclivities assume Ferndale is a desirable location? Hasn't Ferndale for several years now actively lobbied to attract charities, organizations, and events that exist only to protect, cater-to, and promote lifestyles defined by their sexual nature?"
The harangue might have held up a lesser-determined businessman from hanging his shingle in the city. But not Karasinksi.
"I don't know what they're all excited about because they don't know what their own city's requirements are," he said. "We're an open bookstore with just a small 20 percent section that is adult material. So they shouldn't get excited."
The new Chosen featured an expanded card and gift section featuring an assortment of regular books and general category weekly and monthly periodicals.
"We have more room to expand things, when we find out what the community wants and what they're buying," Karasinski said. "I told the city's development director that I'm happy with it. We'll open it up to everybody as long as we have our 20 percent with what most of boys want."
Karasinski could have easily called it quits – he was, after all, already technically retired when he took the business over 14 years ago – but he said a higher calling never allowed him to seriously consider that option.
"I figured my son started it because they needed a place for gays to meet," said Karasinksi. "I'm just carrying on his legacy, what he wanted to do."
