CHERRY HILL, NJ – Cherry Hill’s Township Council hopes that with a thumbs-up vote on a new ordinance tonight, it might work its way out of a bind.Facing a lawsuit brought by a Union County man who wants to open an adult shop along Route 70, the council may exempt from its adult business ordinance a stretch of property in an industrial zone that runs along Interstate 295 and the New Jersey Turnpike.
According to the Cherry Hill Courier Post, the proposed ordinance would lift from the designated industrial area a restriction that requires adult businesses to be located at least 1,000 feet from any residential area, school, day-care center, school bus stop, playground, recreation area, church, or hospital. The ordinance would free up approximately 1.8-percent of the township’s land to potential use by adult businesses.
Cherry Hill Mayor Bernie Platt hopes that the ordinance, if passed, will deter a lawsuit filed by certified public accountant Jim Restaino, who filed an application last year to open Romantic Video & Boutique at Route 70 and Kenwood Drive, according to the Courier Post. After the Township rejected Restaino’s application, he filed suit.
In his lawsuit, Restaino contends that the township’s 1,000 foot rule leaves no place within Cherry Hill for adult businesses, which are permitted under both the New Jersey and U.S. constitutions, to operate legally within the township.
According to Warren Faulk, a First Amendment attorney the township hired as a consultant in the case, adopting the proposed ordinance would eliminate Restaino’s argument that the township provides nowhere for adult business to operate.
Karen Janney, a resident who runs a website created in part to oppose the opening of Romantic Video, told the Courier Post that while she’d prefer no store at all, the township’s proposed location is better than the one Restaino had in mind.
“I think if it’s away from the residential areas, then that’s a good thing,” said Janney. “I’m not happy with it being in Cherry Hill, but it’s at least better than what’s happening now.”
Although industrial, the area designated under the proposed ordinance does have some residential areas nearby, the closest being within the elsewhere-prohibited 1,000 feet.
“I know what they’re trying to do,” Shaula Wright, who lives in the nearby Samuel Coles House, a 263-year-old historic landmark told the Courier Post of the proposed ordinance. “They’re trying to appease this person and they’re casting about for a place.”
“I’m not terribly concerned about this,” said Wright, adding that “no one in their right mind with enough money to open a store would do it here. On the weekends and after 6:00 pm on most days you can roll a bowling ball down the road and not hit a thing.”
Other residents don’t like the idea of a store like Romantic opening up anywhere in Cherry Hill.
“They tear down the moral and spiritual fiber of America and should be banned,” said Cherry Hill resident Bill Leonard.
Eleanor Harrison, another resident of a neighborhood near the designated area says she’s strongly opposed to the ordinance.
“That type of store should not be in Cherry Hill at all,” said Harrison. Harrison added that she doesn’t want her visiting grandchildren exposed to “filth,” and noted that the proposed zone also includes the Cherry Hill Skating Center and the Cherry Hill Presbyterian Church.
“My husband would have been livid about this if he were still alive,” Harrison added. “This originally was all farmland and my husband fought the township when they wanted to make it industrial. They always seem to think this is the area for anything and everything. I resent that.”
