PARIS - The owner of The Brick, a recently opened Norway restaurant, pleaded not guilty in Oxford County Superior Court Tuesday to drug trafficking charges.

Elise Thurlow, 43, of 42 Lovejoy Mountain Road in Albany Township, pleaded not guilty to a drug trafficking charge and two misdemeanor charges of falsifying physical evidence. Her case was continued for 30 days by presiding Judge Roland Cole when her companion and former business partner, Sherwood Jordan, who was also scheduled to be in court Tuesday, failed to be delivered from the Cumberland County jail.

In June, Thurlow was indicted on drug trafficking charges after two pounds of processed commercial marijuana were found at the Albany Township home she shared with 57-year-old Jordan.

Jordan, who previously operated the Colonial Coffee Shoppe with Thurlow in the Opera House in Norway, was one of 19 people indicted in federal court in March on charges of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and marijuana. He has been held at Cumberland County jail since then but was due to answer charges in Oxford County Superior Court on Tuesday. He was indicted by an Oxford County Superior grand jury in June on aggravated drug trafficking and unlawful possession of drugs charges.

"He is being retained federally," Thurlow's attorney Richard Berne told Judge Cole when asked where Jordan was.

Attorneys for both defendants agreed to request the case be held until Jordan could be brought to Superior Court in order to join the arguments.

"It makes sense to have the cases on the same track," Cole said.

Thurlow was released on personal recognizance pending a new court date.