PROVIDENCE — The next time Rhode Island Recycled Metals will appear on the Board of Licenses’ agenda will be a few days after a hearing on the company’s bid to dismiss the city’s lawsuit.

The scrap metal business failed to appear at a May 28 board hearing, which was the third in a series of proceedings that began after owner Jared Sevinor applied for a junk license in January.

There was little discussion as senior assistant city solicitor Jillian Barker told board members that a Superior Court hearing is set for Sept. 1 and that the judge will probably make a decision that day.

The board’s attorney, Louis DeSimone, previously advised members to wait for the court’s guidance before deciding whether to grant or deny a license.

Rhode Island Recycled Metals representatives have argued that the company doesn’t need a junk license and continued operating after the city issued a cease-and-desist order March 8, 2024, prompting Providence officials to file a suit in Superior Court.

The company’s attorney, Gerard Decelles, filed a motion to dismiss in April, arguing that the case has “lain dormant” for two years and that the city’s request for temporary and injunctive relief has “long been abandoned.”

Decelles argued in court filings that the state law governing junk license hearings and objections, along with Providence’s junk license ordinance, are unconstitutional and unenforceable because they rely on a statute the court ruled unconstitutional in 1987.

The Rhode Island Supreme Court ruling stemmed from Johnston officials’ refusal to renew Metals Recycling Co.’s junk license in 1985.

Residents called the site an “eyesore” and a fire and air pollution hazard that dragged down property values, The Providence Journal reported. The owner testified that he had complied with permit conditions and invested thousands of dollars in improvements, but the council denied the renewal anyway, according to the case law.

The company appealed, arguing that Rhode Island’s law, which allows municipalities to issue and revoke junk licenses “at pleasure,” gave them unlimited discretion to renew or revoke licenses.

The court agreed and found that the law lacked standards to guide decision-making.

City officials noted in court filings that only one part of the law was ruled unconstitutional — the ability to grant or deny licenses “at pleasure.”

They pointed to a 1991 decision in which the court upheld the statute’s hearing and objection provisions after the Board of Licenses denied a landowner a license to operate a “white goods” recycling facility, after nearly half of the abutters within 200 feet objected.

They added that the court may hold a portion of a statute unconstitutional and uphold the rest when the unconstitutional part is not essential to the law’s purpose and intent.

Mayor Brett Smiley said during a May 26 community discussion that the court has not granted the city its various requests for emergency closures.

“We have tried to take every step we know how to take,” he said. “We’re working with a very litigious and well-lawyered business owner who has been dragging this out for several years now.”

The president of the Washington Park Neighborhood Association, Linda Perri, said it’s ironic that nothing is happening.

“I’m hoping the judge will take pity on the residents who have been subjected to fires and filth,” she added.

Court documents show that Rhode Island Recycling Metals hasn’t held a municipal junk license since at least 2014. State Department of Business Regulation records show the company’s state auto wrecking and salvage yard license expired in 2018.

The board of license members agreed to continue the hearing until Sept. 17.