Belmar Benny does the Tropical Pub

A Pictorial Journey Through a Day Spent Entirely Inside of a Bar


I guess when Benny was able to confirm our story weeks ago that the Tropical Pub in Belmar NJ, is being sold, He decided he better get over to the Trop to play Sunday Bingo

Blogs Belmar's latest weapon in battle with rowdy renters

Blogs Belmar's latest weapon in battle with rowdy renters
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 07/30/07
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

BELMAR — Belmar Benny sat down at his computer and tapped out his prediction of what the summer of 2007 would be like at the group rental he shares with his buddies by recalling last year.

"Partying 'till daylight, banging pots and pans together, tossing the kitchen table on the roof, hanging the furniture upside down from the ceiling, waking up the neighborhood with a contraption called The Horn On A Board, smashing glassware over each other's heads," he wrote.

But Belmar officials were reading his blog as well, promising to counter "Horn On A Board" with their own favorite: "Cop On Your Porch."

Monitoring blogs is the newest tactic in Belmar's long-running effort to keep its notoriously rowdy group rentals under control in one of the Jersey shore's last true party towns.

The borough's efforts are led by a bike-riding mayor who patrols the street looking for trouble, and backed by stiff fines that can easily reach into the thousands of dollars. Police officers hand-deliver lists of do's and don't to renters, and a Web site in which troublesome rentals are plotted on a map and marked with icons showing the face of Police Chief Wiggum from "The Simpsons."

"It's all about peaceful coexistence," said Mayor Ken Pringle. "We're not trying to make Belmar into a sleepy town. We just want it to be able to sleep."

But that's easier said than done in certain neighborhoods here, where large groups of young adults drink, party and generally raise a ruckus with little regard for the fact that not everyone on the block likes or wants to hear the Beastie Boys fight for their right to party at 4 a.m.

It's a battle that Belmar has been winning over the past two decades. Located five miles south of Asbury Park, Belmar has 7,000 year-round residents, but its population swells to 60,000 in the summer.

In 1990, there were over 1,200 summer rental units here; now there are just over 300. Lots that once held ramshackle party huts now boast $800,000 homes whose residents are not shy about calling the police to complain about noise.

"This past weekend it was nice weather, and you want to sleep with your windows open, except for all the people yelling and screaming," said Esther Spivak, who has lived for 21 years on a street with some of the worst group rentals. "I said "forget it' and put the air conditioning on. And even then, when the bars let out, I still got woken up with all the people yelling outside, and the taxis pulling up and slamming doors. I woke up exhausted the next day."

This summer, Pringle started writing a weekly online newsletter that was also printed and distributed to summer renters. Besides information on city ordinances and services (garbage pickup and recycling dates, among others), the newsletter also smacks violators with a different type of trash talk from the mayor.

One particular cluster of renters received their fifth summons of the summer less than a month after moving in. Pringle wrote that they give "new meaning to the term "

slow learners.' Or maybe they're just extremely wealthy. Whatever they're thinking (or more likely, not thinking), we'll be more than happy to keep taking their money at the violations window in Borough Hall."

The newsletter also points out many of the tough measures Belmar has taken in recent years, including hiring off-duty sheriff's officers to stand directly outside the rowdiest houses — at $1,000 per weekend, billed against the landlord's security bond. There are 78 Category 1 "Animal Houses" in Belmar, the scenes of repeated quality of life convictions.

Not everyone appreciates the humor. Kevin Fay, who owns two rental properties, said Pringle's tone is insulting and is scaring away tourists.

"Instead of saying, "Welcome to Belmar, please obey our laws and regulations,' he hits them over the head with a sledgehammer and says, "Leave your money at the curb and leave town,' " Fay said.

Pringle said the real estate market has made it more profitable for landowners to knock down party shacks and build year-round houses, a trend that is sweeping Belmar. Conversely, rowdy rentals can bring down the property values of an entire block or even a whole street, he said.

To prevent that from happening, Belmar can be quick to slap a summons on someone who violates one of its many rules, including not having a summer rental do's and don'ts poster hanging on an inside wall, playing "beer pong" or having an inflatable swimming pool on the front lawn, putting trash or recyclables out too soon, or in the wrong type of container, or without a borough-supplied orange tag affixed. Fines run from $250 to $2,000.

Any house that was the subject of a noise complaint gets a dawn visit the next morning by a code inspector. And Belmar assesses higher fines for noise violations as the hour gets later — a borrowed idea from a local bar that raises drink prices with each passing hour on "Beat The Clock Night." So, a shouted curse that costs $350 at 11 p.m. would cost $750 by 2 a.m.

Despite the blizzard of summonses falling down on his neighbors, 23-year-old Josh Seery of Robbinsville and his housemates are having a blast this summer, mainly by following one simple rule.

"Just don't be stupid," he said. "Have fun, but be respectful. We know not to have too many people over, especially people we don't even know. That's when things get out of hand."

Belmar Benny realizes borough police are serious about locking up troublemakers.

"A friend of mine once got arrested and spent the night in a municipal court cell," Benny wrote on his blog. "He said it was the quietest night of sleep he ever got in Belmar!"

Good luck Manasquan, or if Youtube had been around Belmar back in the day

This video could have been filmed at many a shore house in Belmar back in the day,with this video We crown Manasquan NJ "King of all summer rentals 2007" enjoy the title, and please we dont want it back so, keep doing what your doing in Squan and take the last few Belmar rat trap landlords with you

summer rental video 2007 Youtube.com Belmar

I guess this is something to do on a rainy day ? I have no idea what street this is from, but my guess is 14th ave. ..???

Web site designed to foster peace

"Animal house" Web site designed to foster peace
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 07/1/07
BY KENNETH E. PRINGLE

Post Comment
It is apparent from the June 23 editorial "Unplug 'animal house' site" that the Press editorial board misunderstands the state's "animal house" statute and the purpose of Belmar's online summer rental map and database, which makes already public information easily accessible.

Belmar's online rental map and database and new BelmarRentals411.com site — all of which were built at no cost to taxpayers — are designed to provide summer tenants, landlords and residents alike with easy online access to information in an effort to reduce quality-of-life complaints and foster peaceful coexistence between Belmar's year-round and seasonal communities.

The number of summer rentals in Belmar has dropped dramatically over the past 17 years, from more than 1,200 in 1990 to about 320 rental units on 249 properties as of this summer. But the surge of new homeowners in Belmar's traditional summer rental neighborhoods has put more homeowners in proximity to rentals, increasing opportunities for friction and causing complaints to increase even as rentals continue to decline.

The objective of our efforts is not to intimidate or harass, but to use the Internet to better educate our summer tenants — a population that turns over every few years — about Belmar's rules and how we enforce them.

The need to provide better information was apparent as members of the Borough Council and I went door-to-door on Memorial Day weekend handing out a welcome letter with information about Belmar's rules. We had an opportunity to meet and speak with many of the renters. Most were only vaguely familiar with the state's "animal house" statute, or even the status of their own rental in the "animal house" process, much less the potentially substantial financial consequences of getting a noise summons if a hearing officer previously has designated their rental to be an "animal house." Even if they never have rented in Belmar before and had no idea their rental is an "animal house," tenants can incur steep costs under the law as a result of what would otherwise be a normal noise summons.

The borough's online map and database make it easy for tenants, residents and landlords to keep abreast of the status of a property under the "animal house" law. All information provided on the map is public. The database tracks only those summonses that affect the status of a rental property under the "animal house" statute, and could result in financial consequences for the landlord or tenants.

The editorial board's criticism that this is somehow discriminatory because homeowners' noise violations aren't also posted online is more appropriately directed to the Legislature, which saw fit to make the "animal house" statute apply only to seasonal rentals. Belmar's Web site, which lists only the Belmar address and not the names of tenants who receive summonses, provides far less information than the police blotter section of this newspaper.

In providing greater transparency, we thought we were following the lead of the Press, which has demonstrated through its DataUniverse project the virtue of making public information easily accessible online. We think the benefits of transparency are especially significant here.

Our database enables tenants to know the status of their rental this summer, and will help them make more informed decisions when it's time to choose next summer's rental. We intend to encourage the tenants in the 90 percent of our rentals who do not get summonses to use this year's lease as a reference so a prospective 2008 landlord can check our database to verify they were good neighbors in 2007.

The database also enables the majority of our summer rental landlords, whose tenants rarely, if ever, cause problems for their neighbors, to avoid being unfairly lumped in with the minority of landlords whose rentals persistently cause problems.

The online database also provides value to our residents, who can use the site to see whether our police are doing their jobs. And prospective Belmar homebuyers can see where Belmar's summer rentals are located and make a more informed decision about where to buy or how much to pay.

This online education effort is only part of a larger, more comprehensive effort by the council, under the leadership of Council President Meredith Brennan, who held a meeting this spring with summer rental real estate agents, bar owners and even taxi owners, to develop a coordinated plan to reduce the friction between Belmar's summer and year-round communities.

Although it's still early in the summer, these efforts already are bearing fruit. The number of noise complaint calls from residents is the lowest ever, and residents in some neighborhoods are reporting their best summer in memory. We hope this trend will hold as we continue to keep our summer rental community better informed about our rules and to work proactively and cooperatively to promote a peaceful coexistence between our summer and year-round communities.

Kenneth E. Pringle is mayor of Belmar.