Our shul, Fair Lawn Jewish Center is involved in an ugly dispute with residents who live near the center.
The problem started when the Center began to rent out its gym to basketball leagues. Neighbors complained about the noise resulting from games that sometimes went until 10 at night. Fair Lawn Police staged an investigation including setting up a seatbelt checkpoint, a ticket blitz and using road flares, on the streets which lead to the Center. This was disconcerting to some congregants who thought maybe an accident had taken place.
Other than an abundance of cars parked on the street 3 days a year (Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur), I believed that those who lived near the shul find it to be a good neighbor, a belief backed up by some of those very same residents.
The problem it seems wasn't a matter of religion, it is a matter of race. Turns out the organization renting out the gym is from nearby Patterson which has a mostly black population.
Neighbors complained that cars were vandalized (including a footprint on the roof) and one neighbor said a crazed man stood on his lawn and threatened him with a gun.
Seems to me the noise complaints are not the issue, the neighbors are mad about the unsavory element being brought into our town to play basketball.
7 comments:
Your facts lead to an inference that it is not about race but rather about unsavory and undesirable vandals and menaces. These rental seemed to have created a nuisance. Seems the town should settle this dispute by requiring the synagogue to hire extra security to patrol. This way the nuisance can be eliminated but the jews can still make their money by renting out the gym
I'm extrapolating based on the evidence I had.
Fact is, the residents don't want this element in their neighborhood. If they went to the shul and said "there were two incidents, shut it down" they would have no case, but if they say the basketball leagues are violating the borough noise ordinance, that could lead to the Center having to cease and desist.
You can never truly know someone's motivation but I doubt the residents were excited about the prospect of black youths from Patterson coming to play basketball late at night. They were probably against this from the start and think they found their way to stop it.
Had there been no residents being menaced or property vandalized and instead the visitors to the gym greeted residents with ice cream and polite debate re the management of carbon dioxide emissions from SUVs, I doubt there would be an issue. These people might be racist, but that is immaterial because they have a right not to tolerate not only unsavory but illegal behavior. However, the synagogue has a right to rent out its Gym. I think most noise ordinances should be voided for vagueness that leads to an overbroad statute that is unconsititutional because there is no clear delination of what activity violates the noise ordinance and what does not. Thus, when you are not dealing with chronically load amplified sound, it is not appropriate for the Court the issue a cease and desist order because their renting of the gym attracts loud people to the neighborhood. The actions of those people in the streets making noise seem too attentuated from the synagogue. Unless the noise ordinance has some codified element of nuisance, nuisance law might be more proper b/c the law is more developed albeit probably equally ambiguous. In any case, this should be a matter that should be settled. The renters like basketball and the Jews have a nice Court to play in.
Conch,
You are speaking from a strictly legal perspective, specifically as it relates to the attenuation of the claim that the vandalism is related to the renting of the Center. While legally, it would be viewed as attenuated because those same elements could have visited the neighborhood and engaged in the same unlawful acts at any time, but practically, in the hearts and minds of those affected by these acts, the vandalism and menacing behavior is not attenuated at all. They view these incidents as a direct result of the Center's new tenants. As I stated in the original post, I don't think the neighbors true quarrell is related to the noise. I believe they are troubled by the new (black) element which has entered their otherwise (mostly) lilywhite suburb.
Do you think beachgoers wanted to see a very badly burned John Candy spilling egg creams all over them? no, of course not; but his neighbor flashed her great big rack in front of him several times and he learned how to sail...
None of this is true!! The game's that are played there are young kids who are with there parents. There is only one court so only one game can be played at a time so there maybe 20 cars at the most in the parking lot. Nobody hangs out outside or bothers the neighbors. As for the noise, there is none!! The only noise you hear is the dog barking across the street. Even the cops that have come there are sick of dealing with the neighbors!! I am parent who's child has played games there. There are no problems! The only problem is the neighbors lack of a life!! They try to create problems!
Just another voice to watch it on the race statement... if any of the renters are destroying the neighborhood, that's the real issue... and if it takes a noise ordinance to shut it down, then so be it: much easier to shut it down based on existing code rather than having to police one's own neighborhood. On the flip side, though... if the gym is legally approved, and there's people using the gym, and there's noise from the gym, then too bad: it's a gym. The noise complaint could properly boil down to a complaint that the _existing_ gym is getting used... so too bad for the neighbors. Of course, there's always more to a story than what sees its way to print....
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