No adult store for township
By ROBERT LINNEHAN
The Cherry Hill Sun
10/17/2009

There will be no adult store on Route 70, the township reported last week.

A lengthy legal battle came to a close recently, with the outcome being that a proposed adult store will not be opened at Route 70 and Kenwood Drive.

The township had been embroiled in a legal battle to bar a business owner from opening up a proposed adult item store at a vacant building that sits along Route 70.

The case resulted in the township’s insurance carrier paying $612,500 to Jim Restaino’s company, Partners 70 LLC. Communications Director Dan Keashen said the settlement has no contribution from the township, all of the funding was provided by the township’s insurance carrier.

More importantly, Council Member John Falcone said, was the fact that there is now a deed restriction in the township that limits businesses of a sexual nature to one area in town.

“The township can now move forward after this settlement. We’ve learned a great lesson in regard to people’s rights,” he said. “Coming out of this, we’ve created a zone for this type of business in the township.”

Keashen said the zone is now located in an industrial park in the township along I-295. In 2004, businessman Jim Restaino – who owns the Romantic Video and Boutique shop in Mt. Laurel, among various other ventures – was considering selling adult and non-adult videos, in addition to other adult-oriented items, in the building he purchased in 2001.

When the township was alerted that Restaino was considering using the location for an adult store, it did not grant him a building permit.

In turn, Restaino levied a lawsuit against the municipality in 2005.

The business would have closely mirrored his store in Mt. Laurel.

Council members and township residents took umbrage to the fact that the store was adjacent to the Barclay Farms neighborhood of Cherry Hill.

When the case was first filed, Restaino and his attorney, Dennis Oury, offered to limit the store’s “adult” sales and rentals to just 30 percent of the facility, utilizing the other 70 percent of the retail area for non-adult video sales and rentals.

At the time, they claimed the township’s response to their negotiation was to pass a new ordinance in 2004 banning any sexually oriented businesses from setting up shop within 1,000 feet of schools, child-care centers, parks, playgrounds, and places of public worship.

The ordinance was further amended in 2005 to ban such stores anywhere within 500 feet of a school bus stop.

Oury was not available for comment last week, as he was out of his office.

Mayor Bernie Platt applauded the resolution to the court case. It’s good news, he said, to know this store won’t be near any of the Cherry Hill neighborhoods.

“The township is thrilled that this settlement has been signed, sealed and delivered without town hall providing a dime of taxpayer money,” he said.