Richard Osburn is about to wear his convictions on his sleeve.

Make that his chest – and, he hopes, the chests of hundreds of others as he solicits support for his fight against City Hall’s efforts to shut down his Naughty But Nice shop, 1741 Mass.

Osburn ordered 300 custom T-shirts Thursday from Midwest Graphics, each featuring an outline of the United States and a spot marking Lawrence. The slogan: “Lawrence, Kansas: The Little Dictatorship Surrounded by a Free Country.”

“We’ll sell them at the shop and at bars,” said Osburn, who is bracing for the city to start fining him any day now. “Remember, bar owners aren’t real happy about the smoking ban, either. At $5 a shirt, we ought to be able to sell a lot of them.”

Osburn’s shop, which opened seven years ago, sells sexually explicit DVDs, adult novelties and other related products and is considered a nonconforming use in the city’s Land Development Code. The code includes a law passed a little more than six years ago mandating that sex shops must be both licensed and located along a state highway.

Osburn has been selling paper clips, used books and other items in recent weeks to try to keep his business from being defined as a sex shop.