WESTBROOK – A judge in Maine Business Court has upheld a decision by the city’s Zoning Board that Pike Industries was never permitted to operate a quarry on Spring Street.

The decision came down from Chief Justice Thomas Humphrey Monday.

“We’re disappointed but not surprised,” said Tony Buxton, an attorney for Pike.

The Zoning Board determined in July 2009 that Blue Rock, the former owner of Pike’s Spring Street quarry, did not fulfill certain conditions required by a permit issued in 1968. Because the conditions, which included conducting tests on the vibration levels of blasts in the quarry, were never met, the permit could be rendered invalid.

However, the court will next consider the second portion of Pike’s appeal of the Zoning Board decision, which challenges the fairness of enforcing the conditions of a permit that’s more than 40 years old.

“Where you have had a quarry up and operating, which the city has known about and issued permits for, you can’t go back and say it’s an unlawful operation,” Buxton said Wednesday.

The Zoning Board last year recognized that fairness was an issue, but members said they felt it would be the role of the court – not the board – to take it under consideration.

“We have always felt our stronger arguments were in the equitable part of the case,” said Buxton.

The scrutiny of the 1968 quarry permit was instigated by lawyers for Idexx Laboratories, one of several businesses located near the quarry that have been fighting to limit Pike’s operations on Spring Street.

Code Enforcement Officer Rick Gouzie determined in January 2009 that Pike could continue to operate its quarry, but not expand operations, adding rock-crushing, asphalt and concrete plants, as it had proposed. Both Pike and Westbrook Works, the group of nearby businesses opposed to Pike’s expansion, appealed Gouzie’s decision to the Zoning Board. While Pike thought it should still be allowed to expand, Westbrook Works argued the company shouldn’t be able to quarry at all. The board sided with Westbrook Works, triggering Pike’s appeal to Maine Business Court.

Westbrook Works sent out a press release Tuesday evening, lauding the court’s recent decision.

“This is a big loss for Pike, its attorneys and its PR man,” said George Rodrigues, a spokesman for Westbrook Works, in the release. “Heavy industrial blasting is simply incompatible with the neighborhood in which Pike has proposed to do this, and finally a judge has affirmed what residents and businesses have been saying all along.”

Buxton said Pike might appeal the court’s latest ruling to the state Supreme Court, but that decision wouldn’t be made until after the second portion of the appeal is decided. Buxton said attorneys for Pike, Idexx, other neighboring businesses and the city are scheduled to meet in two weeks to discuss a hearing schedule for the second part of the appeal, which he expects to be resolved in six to nine months.