It seems that you want the item to remain sortable, but not moveable. See this jsfiddle. Code:
$(".sortable").sortable({
items: "li"
});
$(".sortable").disableSelection();
$('.unsortable').mousedown(function()
{
return false;
});
All it does is cancels the mousedown event: see here about information for returning false from event handlers. It will prevent the default event from occurring and prevent the event from bubbling up to the other event handlers.