Cherry Hill, NJ- Friday was a rare good day for Cherry Hill in its lengthy legal fight with an adult store business owner who wants to sell his sex-themed wares along the township’s main thoroughfare and next to a residential area.

After four months of severe public criticism on how it’s handled the porn store lawsuit, the township essentially got a chance to make a fresh start Friday because of two court rulings.

First, Superior Court Judge Michael Kassel decided the township had never agreed to a settlement with Jim Restaino, a Union County accountant who wants to expand his sexually-oriented business to a storefront along Route 70. Cherry Hill’s mayor and council didn’t approve an agreement and the settlement proposal under consideration was incomplete in such areas as the store’s name, signage and interior layout, Kassel said.

Second, Kassel ruled he would reopen the case and consider Cherry Hill’s most recent ordinance permitting porn stores in the community, which the township’s lawyers believe can better withstand constitutional legal challenges. The ordinance, which allows porn stores in more commercial and industrial areas of town, went into effect last month.

Kassel based his determination on something called the time of decision rule, which lets a municipality amend an ordinance while a legal matter is pending and then permits the court to consider the amended ordinance. The rule has been upheld at all levels in New Jersey’s court system.

With Restaino’s lawsuit now reinstated, attorneys for the township and Restaino will meet March 5 to discuss how the lawsuit will proceed. It’s likely a hearing wouldn’t start until the summer or fall, lawyers said.

“Cherry Hill feels they’ve put together an ordinance that will pass constitutional muster,” said Warren Faulk, a First Amendment lawyer the township hired as a consultant for the case. He’s a partner with the Brown & Connery law firm.

Faulk said Restaino and his lawyers don’t have to sue the township to open a porn shop in Cherry Hill because there’s now a sizable zone — 15,500 acres across four areas of town — where they can lease space or build a business. He emphasized Restaino never had a legal right under state statute to open a sexually-oriented business at Route 70 and Kenwood Drive, which is an entrance to the Brookmeade neighborhood.

Restaino, who owns Romantic Video & Boutique, a porn store on Route 73 in Mount Laurel, sued the township in March 2005, arguing his constitutional rights were violated when his business application was denied in 2004. He asserted there was next to no place to open a porn business in Cherry Hill. A Superior Court trial in June was cut short when both sides said they reached a settlement agreement that would have let Restaino devote 49 percent of his store to sex-themed products.

“We’re not going away. I look forward to litigating the matter again in court,” said Dennis Oury, a Hackensack attorney representing Restaino. “Never again will I settle with the township because I’ve learned you can’t take them at their word.”

In his arguments before Kassel on Friday, Oury lambasted the township for claiming it was negotiating a settlement in good faith only to pull out when public outcry against the store skyrocketed in the fall. He went so far as to accuse Cherry Hill of entering into settlement negotiations as a stall tactic to change strategy when its previous expert did poorly in the June hearing.

“If I’m right in what I’m saying, it’s just not fair play,” Oury said. “I’m now, after three years of litigation, going to have to start all over again.”

He noted the township amended its porn ordinance at least three times before in failed attempts to make it constitutional and predicted the measure would change again.

“How many times does a municipality get a bite at the apple before it gets egregious?” Oury said.

Three leading opponents of the porn store proposal attended Friday’s hearing and praised Kassel’s decision and the township’s legal defense.

“It was a very good win for Cherry Hill,” said Phyllis Jones, a township resident.

“The state of New Jersey has been rolled over in these cases,” said Bridget Bell, who lives in Cherry Hill. “It’s out of balance right now favoring the porn shops and I think it’s time for people to stand up and say no.”

Responding to critics who charge Cherry Hill residents are snobs who consider sexually-oriented businesses beneath them, Theresa Mohrfeld asked how other people would like it if a porn store abutted their neighborhood.

“We’re not saying these stores can’t be anywhere in Cherry Hill. We’re saying that this location is absolutely not appropriate because its backyard is in a residential area,” Mohrfeld said. “It should not be near where children are.”