The famous Hustler store on Sunset Strip in West Hollywood - the go-to porn location which has been operating since 1998 - has reportedly been sold to an anonymous buyer for an unknown price and will be closing down soon.
In an interview with Bloomberg, spokespersons for the adult magazine said that the store was under escrow and it would be moved to a yet-to-determine location.
While no more details of the deal were available, Bloomberg is reporting that a hotel could be built on the property. Apparently, lawyers interested in the Hustler store visited the Community Development Department of the city to discuss potential plans of building a hotel.
"It will either happen now or eventually because once you use up all the land on the Strip, the next step is to find all the underutilized places that can be torn down and rebuilt," Patrick Amos, senior associate at CBRE Group in Beverly Hills, told the agency in a telephonic interview.
This is not the first building Hustler is getting rid of. Last year, the adult magazine sold its headquarters in West Hollywood to Douglas Emmett Inc. for $82 million. Spokespersons for the company added that the Sunset Strip's store sale is unrelated to the headquarters sale.
News of the sale coincides with Hustler's 40th anniversary. Founder Larry Flynt, who was promoting Hustler in an interview with Bloomberg News, said that the future of Hustler was bleak. He added that while Hustler won't cease publication altogether, it would keep going as long as it was making money, reports WEHOville.com.
"I don't think Hustler's going to be around very much longer," Flynt said. "Most people are getting their information from the Internet. It's a technology evolution that brings a lot with it and takes a lot away."
Indeed, ever since the internet took over, the print versions of adult magazines like Playboy and Hustler have been struggling. But, Flynt is proud of what he has built over 40 long years in the porn industry.
In a separate interview with Huff Post Live, Flynt jokingly said one of his proudest moments was "helping all those young men make it through puberty."
"When Hustler started, no one really knew what a woman looked like, and I think that what we did was let the whole nation know that a woman's vagina had as much personality as her face," he said.
