WICHITA — With the opening of Twizted Confections in Normandie Center in late 2012, Bruce Reesman switched his focus from his Not Just A Cop Shop to baking.
“He’s got his plate really full,” says his wife, Tina Sidelnik. “My husband’s having a great time. We’ve got a really fantastic crew there with lots of creative energy.”
So she’s preparing to do something new in the Not Just A Cop Shop space at 2817 E. Central, which is between Hillside and Grove.
“We are in the process of kind of transitioning our store,” Sidelnik says.
Not Just A Cop Shop is having a clearance sale and will close its doors most likely at the end of March after more than seven years in business.
“We’ve run our course for as far as we can run it,” Sidelnik says.
She says the store focused on the general public’s security needs along with smaller law enforcement departments and security firms. Sidelnik says she and her husband never went after bigger city and county contracts. She says they found that their sales to other customers were hurt by the Internet.
Now Sidelnik says she has plans for a new store that “is going to be something up my alley.”
“We are going to focus on individuals that do not get recognition in apparel,” she says. “We’re going to focus on thick women.”
Sidelnik is naming the shop Thick Girls.
“I don’t want to say plus-sized,” she says. “I don’t like that word. Plus-sized what?”
“Thick” may not be a compliment to some, but that’s now how Sidelnik sees it.
“To me, a thick woman is a woman who has curves and is shapely and has something to her other than just skin and bones.”
Sidelnik puts herself in that category.
“I’m not petite like I used to be,” she says. “A lot of people aren’t size 2 anymore. A lot of people aren’t size 10 anymore.”
Sidelnik wants to have affordable, comfortable clothes.
“Basically because I saw a market that was not being taken care of,” she says. “There’s a lot of just beautiful, beautiful women in this town, and they need to have clothes that make them feel beautiful and let them feel beautiful.”
The store will cater to teens as well. Sidelnik also will have a resale component to her business to further offer inexpensive clothing.
She says there are some shops in Wichita that cater to larger sizes, “but some of that stuff is just ugly.”
Sidelnik says she wants to provide clothing for customers that “allows them to express themselves through their clothing.”
“I want to be able to provide that for them – and for me.”
She anticipates it will take six months to open Thick Girls. Sidelnik is eager to get it open.
“I think that it’s a service we need in this small town.”