Adult store bills pass
By JENNIFER KELLEY
Cherry Hill Sun
6/25/2007

Locally sponsored bills restricting adult businesses sail through state Assembly

A two-bill package aimed at boosting municipal control over sexually oriented businesses was passed nearly unanimously by the state Assembly last week. Assemblywoman Pamela Lampitt of Cherry Hill sponsored the legislation, along with assemblymen Louis Greenwald (D-Camden) and John McKeon (D-Essex).

Lampitt (D-Camden) and Greenwald crafted the bills in the wake of a Union County businessman’s plans to convert a vacant building along Route 70 into a store selling adult novelties and videos. The small, aging structure abuts two residential neighborhoods, and many community members expressed their outrage and alarm at the venture to township officials last year. Cherry Hill is currently involved in a lawsuit with the business owner, Jim Restaino, who owns a Romantic Video & Boutique in Mt. Laurel and is seeking to open a similar facility at the Route 70 location.

Restaino’s attorney, Dennis Oury, could not be reached for comment.

McKeon signed onto the measure in response to a community-oriented fight in Essex County last year over an adult bookstore that opened along Route 46 in Fairfield.

The lawmakers said they sponsored the bills in order to protect children and property owners in communities with sexually oriented businesses.

The first bill – approved 75-1 with four abstentions – would authorize municipalities across the state to adopt ordinances for regulating and licensing sexually oriented businesses. In addition, it requires owners whose businesses are within 3,000 feet of any place children congregate to provide an adult crossing guard, police officer or private security guard – at their expense – during times when children are likely to be outside their homes and while the businesses are in operation.

The measure would build upon current state law that already bars sexually oriented businesses from operating within 1,000 feet of any house of worship, elementary or high school, school bus stop, hospital, child-care center, recreational area or another existing sexually oriented business.

And, the lawmakers noted, it wouldn’t cost the community a dime.

“Taxpayers shouldn’t bear the costs of ensuring that children don’t get exploited by porn peddlers and other adult-oriented business,” Greenwald said about the proposed law. “The operators of sexually oriented businesses should shoulder the costs.”

The second bill, which passed 77-1 with two abstentions, would mandate that owners obtain a use variance from a municipality’s zoning board every time they want to open an adult store, and would require them to notify all property owners within 3,000 feet of the proposed sexually oriented business before presenting their plan at a public hearing.

Lampitt, who served on Cherry Hill’s zoning board in the past, noted, “Residents should have the ability to come out and have their say when someone seeks to open one of these businesses in their community.”

She added that the best way to resolve a problematic situation – such as the one that occurred in the township last year between Restaino and residents – is for the business owner to reach out to the public and work with them to allay their fears and concerns.

But the bill package is primarily about providing community safety, security and awareness, Lampitt told The Sun.

“Adult sexually oriented businesses may have First Amendment rights, but that doesn’t give them carte blanche to exploit children or erode the property values of nearby homeowners. We need to provide property owners and communities with all possible tools to keep porn shops and other adult-oriented businesses in check,” she said.

The bills will next be introduced in the Senate. If they find the same support there that they found in the Assembly, the package would land on Gov. Corzine’s desk. But there are many hurdles to surpass before the legislation gets to that point, Lampitt said, noting she and her fellow lawmakers anticipate that both measures will be aggressively opposed by the porn industry.

Prior to the bill’s introduction in the Assembly, Lampitt, Greenwald and McKeon met with representatives from the New Jersey League of Municipalities to discuss the organization’s opposition to the bills, and the trio plans to soon meet with the Adult Cabaret Association, which has also spoken out against the proposed new laws.

“We know we are in for a fight,” Lampitt said, “but we need to get the message across to these businesses that they are not going to run roughshod over our communities.”

Mayor Bernie Platt said the township fully supports both measures, adding that officials are “happy and grateful that this issue is being strengthened through state law and that our legislators are giving local officials more tools to keep these businesses away from residential areas.”