NYC- Porn peddlers are getting another chance to challenge a city zoning law they claim unconstitutionally banishes them from most neighborhoods.

Overturning a lower court ruling, the Court of Appeals decided 4-3 yesterday to send the case brought against the city by X-rated businesses back to trial.

Several clubs and video stores selling smut sued the city over a 2001 amendment to a 1995 law that exiled such businesses from all neighborhoods outside certain industrial areas. They said the restriction violated the constitutional right to free expression.

The establishments had been operating under the “60/40 rule” that a business couldn’t be called an adult establishment if less than 40% of its floor space or inventory was devoted to porn or X-rated materials. The 2001 amendments closed that loophole by saying that a business that devoted any of its space to porn would count as an adult business.

But the businesses sued, arguing that the city had enacted a new law without proper study, and won their case in Supreme Court. That ruling was later overturned by an appellate court.

Writing for the majority yesterday, Judge Susan Read said the city has to show that the 60/40 businesses still display a “predominant, ongoing focus on sexually explicit materials or activities” to justify strengthening the 1995 ordinance.

“If not, plaintiffs will prevail” at trial, she said.