CHERRY HILL — from www.courierpostonline.com – The legal battle over a proposed sex shop that outraged Cherry Hill residents appears to be over.

The township and the shop’s owner have settled a lawsuit over whether the company, Partners 70 LLC, could open an adult video and novelties store on eastbound Route 70 at Kenwood Avenue. The township’s insurance carrier will pay an undisclosed amount to Partners 70, owned by Jim Restaino of Union County, under the settlement.

“Moving forward, when the agreement is finalized next week, Mayor (Bernie) Platt will have won the war against opening a house of ill-repute next to one of Cherry Hill’s largest neighborhoods,” said Dan Keashen, the mayor’s chief of staff.

The township council passed a resolution last week to settle the lawsuit.

Restaino, who declined to comment on the settlement, sued Cherry Hill in 2005 after township officials denied his business application. Restaino argued that ordinances that banned sex-themed stores from residential areas were unconstitutional.

Meanwhile, the Barclay Area Civic Association vehemently protested the prospect of a Romantic Video & Boutique opening in its front yard.

The case went to trial in June 2006 and a $225,000 settlement was drafted. Restaino accused the township of reneging on the settlement after word of a deal outraged residents.

A Superior Court judge later ruled that since neither Platt nor the town council approved the settlement, the settlement did not exist.

The litigation inspired protests and efforts to target sex-toy purveyors and customers alike. At one point, Platt said he would lie down in front of the proposed shop’s site to prevent construction, and members of a residents’ group, Cherry Hill Together, vowed to post online photos of the store’s patrons. Residents also pushed for an ordinance banning adult stores from the township.

By January 2007 the township had created special zones for sex shops in more industrial parts of Cherry Hill in order to beat back legal challenges such as the one filed by Restaino.

Restaino had agreed to a 49 percent cap on adult-themed goods at Romantic, with those items to be placed out of sight in the back of the store. He later amended his suit to challenge the new zoning ordinances and to claim financial damages from litigation costs and lost business.
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The case prompted state legislators to introduce bills allowing municipalities to pass zoning ordinances restricting sex shops and requiring the daytime posting of security guards at schools, school bus stops and child care centers within 3,000 feet of those stores.

At present, two locations in Cherry Hill — an industrial park between the New Jersey Turnpike and Route 295 and the Melitta Coffee complex on Haddonfield-Berlin Road near Route 295 — are zoned for adult-themed businesses.

The Assembly OK’d the bills in June 2007. However, the New Jersey League of Municipalities opposed the bills, citing “costly and potentially unconstitutional provisions.”

Legislators, led by Assemblywoman Pamela Lampitt, D-Cherry Hill, later amended the bills.

“There’s only so much constitutionally you can tell a store owner that they can put in their windows,” said Lampitt. “You realize the freedom of speech (aspects) and what the Founding Fathers meant by it.”

The effort to allow municipalities to create their own ordinances has been dropped, and the current legislation requires adult businesses to install security cameras and lighting around their property instead of security guards.

Jeff Levy of the New Jersey Adult Cabaret Association, which objected to the original legislation, said that the spirit of such laws is wrongheaded, because police data show a low incidence of crime at adult-themed businesses, a point Lampitt conceded.

“You need to concentrate more on predators on MySpace and where the problems actually are,” said Levy, whose input Lampitt used when revising the bills. “You don’t need to concentrate on the (adult) industry because you don’t like its form of speech.”