Cherry Hill, NJ- The township council will conduct a public hearing and final vote tonight on an ordinance to create special zones for adult video and sex toy stores.
If approved, the measure would permit sexually oriented businesses in three sections of town:
Between Interstate 295 and the New Jersey Turnpike near the Woodcrest Shopping Center on Haddonfield-Berlin Road.
Along both sides of Old Cuthbert Road between Route 70 and Chapel Avenue.
On the west side of Olney Avenue, generally between Keystone Avenue and Esterbrook Lane, in the township’s commercial/industrial park.
Township officials said they picked these areas for the special zones because they are away from major residential developments and roadways. The sections under consideration total 15,000 acres, or nearly 2 percent of Cherry Hill’s land area.
The ordinance was unanimously introduced earlier this month and comes at a time when a porn store owner is suing Cherry Hill in state Superior Court to open a shop on Route 70, the township’s main thoroughfare.
The township denied Jim Restaino’s application to open Romantic Video & Boutique at Route 70 and Kenwood Drive at the entrance to a residential neighborhood. He then sued, accusing Cherry Hill of violating his rights because it has next to no land zoned for sexually oriented businesses, which are allowed under the federal and state constitutions.
The township hopes opening up more land to porn shops would eliminate such an argument.
“I know what they’re trying to do. They’re trying to appease this person and they’re casting about for a place,” said Shaula Wright, who lives on Old Cuthbert Road in the 263-year-old Samuel Coles House, a historic landmark.
“I’m not terribly concerned about this,” she said, noting the area isn’t conducive to retail. “No one in their right mind with enough money to open a store would do it here. On the weekends and after 6 p.m. on most days you can roll a bowling ball down the road and not hit a thing.”
Gene Muller, president of Flying Fish Brewing Co. on Olney Avenue, said he doesn’t have a problem with the proposed zone as long as the business owners are responsible members of the community and take care of their property. He did, however, express concern about the zone’s proximity to the Children’s Museum of Cherry Hill on nearby Springdale Road.
Eleanor Harrison, a homeowner in the Old Cuthbert Road zone, said she is adamantly opposed to the ordinance.
“That type of store should not be in Cherry Hill at all,” said Harrison, who doesn’t want her visiting grandchildren exposed to what she called “filth.” She noted the zone includes the Cherry Hill Skating Center on Deer Road and the Cherry Hill Presbyterian Church.
“My husband would have been livid about this if he were still alive. This originally was all farmland and my husband fought the township when they wanted to make it industrial,” Harrison, 81, said. “They always seem to think this is the area for anything and everything. I resent that.”