By JOSEPH KELLARD
Instead, she and her family found a home in the East End, with no watering holes nearby, yet for the past two years the Egans have been kept awake late at night by noisy bars ‹ in Island Park.
Egan, who lives on East Chester Street between Monroe and Lincoln boulevards, is among a group of Long Beach and Island Park residents crusading against the activities ‹ particularly the booming, blaring music ‹ of the bars on south Barnum Isle, including Paddy McGee¹s, the Bridgeview Yacht Club and the latest addition, Warehouse5.
³I¹m asleep by 10 p.m. and then I¹m awake by 11 or 11:30 on the dot, whenever the club opens,² Egan said about the new nightclub. ³I can feel the vibrations from the music.²
Sandwiched between Bridgeview and the Long Beach Bridge, Warehouse5 opened on Memorial Day and has since been active only on Saturdays and Tuesdays.
In addition to the clubs¹ owner, John Vitale, the Island Park and Long Beach residents are blaming both the Nassau County Police Department and the Town of Hempstead for their lack of sleep, saying that they are not enforcing their laws and codes regarding loud noise. Residents are even threatening a class actions lawsuit.
Since Warehouse5 opened, the residents have taken their complaints to both a town board meeting on June 5, and, at Vitale¹s invitation, to a meeting with him at Warehouse5 last Thursday evening.
At the meeting, Egan summed up the complaints of the 80 or so residents who gathered in the club¹s lounge area. Initially, the focus was on the volume of the music, particularly the mega-bass from a newer sound system.
John Gilmore, who lives on East Chester Street off Neptune Boulevard in Long Beach, said he hears not only the bass, but also the lyrics of some songs. ³They¹re waking me up and I¹m a mile away,² he said. ³I have to close the window and have to sleep on the bottom floor of my house.²
A town ordinance states that after 11 p.m., property owners must keep noise confined to their homes or businesses, and residents asked Vitale to abide by this code by turning down his music at that hour. ³You can¹t sleep,² said Anna D¹Amaro, who lives on nearby South California Avenue in Island Park. ³The music is supposed to be off at 11 p.m. That is the town ordinance. Period. Vitale doesn¹t want to abide by it.²
D¹Amaro and other residents noted that Warehouse5 has a tent on the deck outside, and Vitale, whose club does not even open until 11 p.m., said that he has hired engineers to improve the soundproofing, a project he plans to finish by next week. He also said Warehouse5 will no longer feature live bands, and that at Bridgeview he has taken down outside speakers and moved more of the operations indoors.
Vitale said that, by and large, his clubs have enclosed their sound and he has cut down considerably on club activity. He bought the Island Park clubs in 1998, when Bridgeview was a nightclub called Sprats, which, along with the other restaurant-bars along that stretch, were immensely popular.
Not only has he transformed Bridgeview mostly into a catering hall, Vitale said, but he has reduced the nightclub activity from as many as 100 nights a year to about 25. Today, Bridgeview is open as a nightclub only on Saturdays. Vitale said he aims to make Bridgeview a catering-only business and transfer its nightclub activities to Warehouse5.
He also said that he tries to balance the nights on which his clubs are open to attract the most customers, so that each club¹s patrons don¹t all come on the same night.
The meeting began peacefully, but soon grew disorderly, with residents yelling charges at Vitale, Town Councilwoman Angie Cullen, Dan Casella, the second deputy commissioner of the town¹s building department, and 4th Precinct Deputy Inspector Kenneth Hettler. They complained about club patrons driving drunk, urinating on their lawns and vandalizing their property.
Eventually, residents began leaving as their neighbors let complaints and accusations fly. One man accused Cullen of taking money from Vitale, prompting the nightclub owner to call that accusation completely unfounded and Cullen to flash a zero sign to her accuser.
Outside the meeting, Patty and Frank Ambrosia, who live on Sunset Avenue in Island Park, said they thought the meeting was ³awful.² ³I think our Town of Hempstead absolutely does nothing, and I cannot believe that the people from the town said nothing,² Patty said. ³They made the law ‹ why do they not enforce it? You can¹t leave it up to the police, because it¹s up to the town to tell the police what the law is.²
During the meeting, both Casella and Cullen explained the town code, said Mike Deery, a town spokesman who accompanied the representatives that night. Deery said town codes have been enforced, pointing to four summonses ‹ two for noise ‹ that were issued at Vitale¹s nightclubs in the past two weeks.
³So the police know the code, because they have written the violation on that section of the code,² Deery said. He added that while the town will continue to issue summonses, there is a limit to what the municipality can enforce. ³We don¹t have police officer status,² Deery continued. ³ ... And the owner has to appear in court and let a judge determine what will be the next step in the case.²
Focusing on the response of police, Frank Ambrosia said outside the meeting, ³Why weren¹t any of these places shut down this year? Hettler was spouting statistics in there about all their arrests in this area, and that¹s great. But with all the 911 calls that come in, not once has the music even been shut down ‹ it hasn¹t even been turned down. They don¹t have to because the cops aren¹t enforcing it.²
In response, Hettler said, ³The Nassau County Police Department is enforcing the laws and ordinances that¹s required, and the stats that I gave are based on fact.² Vitale must answer the town summonses on July 5.
Vitale said he thought the meeting was productive, and that the residents who remained afterward to talk to him, including Egan and members of the board of directors of the nearby Yacht Club condominium complex, were willing to work with him to foster better neighborly relations, and that they would form a committee to try to work out their differences.
³I¹m very optimistic that we are going to resolve some of the issues we talked about tonight,² Vitale said.
Patty Ambrosia said that she would attend the town board meeting on Tuesday to investigate further how the municipality enforces its codes for noise and other violations.
Comments about this story? JKellard@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 287.
