Cherry Hill, NJ- Mayor Bernie Platt pledged a fight to the end at Monday’s protest against a proposed adult video store on Route 70, but all Janice Hodges kept thinking was too little, too late.
“I think the township dropped the ball,” said Hodges, who lives a few blocks from the planned shop. “This should have been done long ago.”
She wasn’t alone in her sharp criticism of the township’s response to a Union County man’s efforts to convert a vacant building at Route 70 and Kenwood Drive into a sexually oriented business that would sell pornography, lubricants, vibrators and sex fantasy costuming, among other items.
Property owner Jim Restaino sued Cherry Hill on First Amendment grounds in March 2005 to open Romantic Video and Boutique and then faced the township in a three-day trial in June.
But Cherry Hill residents didn’t learn of the litigation until last month when rumors of a signed settlement ignited a firestorm of public outcry, particularly against Platt’s administration.
“Why did he have this today and not a year ago?” asked Carol Johnson, a neighborhood mom, after the anti-smut rally that attracted several dozen residents from throughout Cherry Hill. “And why at 2:30 p.m. on a weekday and not a weekend when we could have had a huge crowd here?”
In a prepared statement, government watchdog and critic Alene Ammond went so far as to urge the mayor and council to immediately fire the township’s lawyers and hire new people to defend the community.
To show he heard residents’ concerns, Platt stepped to the microphone Monday in the parking lot next to the proposed shop and promised to legally do everything he could to keep the business from opening.
“On behalf of our residents, our children and grandchildren, I am drawing a line in the sand and announcing that this township’s government will vigorously fight the presence of such a moral blight on our community and its values,” Platt stated.
His remarks came more than a week after a community meeting about the store that he didn’t attend because of a prior commitment. Upset with the mayor then, residents said they were happy to see him take a hard-line stance against the adult video store on Monday. But throughout the rally, they pestered him to stop talking in generalities and actually say what the township intends to do.
Platt, however, only said the township would “explore every avenue available to our municipal government” while enforcing its ordinances to prevent other adult novelty stores from entering Cherry Hill. He also invited county, state and federal politicians to support the fight with companion legislation.
After the rally, the mayor noted the township is really waiting to see how Restaino and his lawyer, Dennis Oury, react. That will determine the township’s next step, Platt said.
Oury couldn’t be reached for comment Monday, but late last week he said he and his client hadn’t decided how to proceed.
In conjunction with the township’s efforts, residents are gearing up to conduct protests of their own and organize petition drives. There’s also work under way to post customers’ photos on an Internet Web site if the store should open.
“Nothing is off the table at this point,” said Theresa Mohrfeld, who lives in the Barclay neighborhood. “If it is legal, we will do it.”