By FRANK ELTMAN
AP - GARDEN CITY, N.Y. - It’s what kids do: squeal in delight when they’re having fun.
But to some Long Island residents those squeals were unwelcome noise, and they wanted two neighborhood girls playing in a backyard pool to pipe down.
The complaints fell on deaf ears Wednesday night when Bayville’s acting village justice dismissed a summons accusing the girls’ parents, William and Rachel Poczatek, of violating a village noise ordinance.
“I think the village did the right thing,” William Poczatek said.
Poczatek said he was shocked when he and his wife were slapped with a summons. Sure, he said, Ashley, 11, and 5-year-old Chloe make noise when they’re outside enjoying their aboveground swimming pool.
“What, are you telling me that a kid can’t make noise?” he protested. “It’s not fair.”
The Poczateks were cleared because the ordinance is usually reserved for “the shouting and crying of peddlers, hawkers and vendors, which disturbs the peace and quiet of the neighborhood,” their attorney said.
jay: if i remember my long island protocol correctly, the next step after ‘rejected summons/justice was not served’ is arson. if i were you, mr. poczatec, i’d make sure that my smoke detectors were in working order.
dan: jay, i haven’t spent much time on the long island. is there really a big problem with peddler noise? like, what’s the fishmonger population, roughly speaking?
jay: fair question. long island, being an island of some size, is exactly one-half fishmonger and one-half other assorted hawker/vendor (all of whom are both arsonists and volunteer firefighters), which is why the ordinance was on the books in the first place. unfortunately, it does not apply to small children not yet accepted to the fishmonger guild.