A Wiscasset couple continues to challenge the town’s approval of fireworks storage near their home.

A brief filed by Thomas and Kathleen Bryant and new ones filed in response by the town, Al and Melissa Cohen, and Big Al’s Outlet, are moving the 9-month-old appeal closer to a decision in Lincoln County Superior Court.

Justice Daniel Billings called for the new filings over the summer. One more brief from the Bryants is still to come, in reply to the defendants’ briefs. On Sept. 10, Billings gave the Bryants’ lawyer more time to file it.

The couple’s lawyer, Jonathan Pottle, has a planned absence until Sept. 20, according to his request, filed Sept. 8. The defendants in the appeal consented to the request, according to court documents.

The court appeal began in January over issues that date to fall 2014. In court documents and in meetings with the town’s appeals board, Pottle has argued that the planning board erred in approving Al Cohen’s request to store fireworks on JB’s Way; that the decision wasn’t backed up by the evidence; that, as a planning board member, Al Cohen had a conflict of interest in presenting his application; and that the Bryants didn’t get the notice that they should have received when the planning board was taking up the proposal.

Failing to notify the Bryants of a pair of November planning board meetings compounded the panel’s other errors, Pottle argues in a July 28 brief. Pottle also filed copies of the cover and a page from the 11th edition of Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. Homes dominate near the storage site, making the area fit into the dictionary’s definition of residential, Pottle writes.

The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) doesn’t allow consumer fireworks to be stored in residential areas, according to Pottle’s brief.

The Cohens’ and Big Al’s Outlet’s brief, filed Aug. 27, argues that the planning board had no authority to interpret the federal program’s standards. The brief also cites a Feb. 24, 2015, letter from the State Fire Marshal’s Office, stating that, by the agency’s interpretation, the warehouse met all NFPA standards.

The Bryants did not challenge that letter within a 30-day legal window, the Cohens’ brief continues. “The Bryants can no longer challenge (it). Their continued pursuit of this issue ... shows a disregard for the proper appeal process ....”

The Cohens also dispute the Bryants’ conflict of interest claim. Al Cohen had a First Amendment right to present his application; and the board’s other members voted unanimously on Nov. 24, 2014, that Cohen did not try to influence the board’s decision, the brief argues.

The Cohens, Big Al’s Outlet and the town are asking the court to uphold the planning board’s approval of the application. The town’s brief, also filed Aug. 27, maintains the Bryants were not denied due process. The town gave public notice of the meeting; and another meeting the planning board held on Jan. 12, 2015, gave the Bryants ample opportunity to be heard, the town’s lawyer Mary Costigan argues.

Reached Sept. 13, the Bryants said they would be talking with Pottle about their upcoming reply brief that will be filed in the appeal.