Todays Star Ledger Where summer crowd must cool it

Where summer crowd must cool it
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
BY MARYANN SPOTO
Star-Ledger Staff
Stumbling up the driveway with a plastic drink cup in hand, a young woman approached a house on 16th Avenue in Belmar one recent Saturday night, yelling a greeting to the guys on the porch.

They whisked her inside just as a Monmouth County sheriff's officer, parked out front, rushed from his vehicle to tell her she'd be issued a ticket if she didn't keep her voice down.

Welcome to summertime in Belmar, where so-called "Animal Houses" have been the bane of local officials and neighbors for years and where past crackdowns have had only moderate success.

Now officials have resorted to an age-old remedy, public shame.

Town officials began using the Internet this summer to try to embarrass tenants and property owners into compliance with noise regulations, publishing the addresses of violators for all to see. They say the modern-day Scarlet Letter serves as both a warning to summer partiers and a guide to vacationing families seeking the quietest neighborhoods.

Mayor Kenneth Pringle makes no apologies for the acts of humiliation that appear in cyberspace and in a weekly newsletter he personally delivers to summer renters.

"A lot of tenants who find it difficult to comply with the law may decide Belmar is not the place for them to summer. That's fine," the mayor said. "If you know how to behave, ... Belmar is a great place to vacation."

Pringle boasts that this seaside Monmouth County town, which he has led for 17 years, has the Shore's most aggressive plan to deal with quality-of-life issues that accompany summer crowds.

Animal House laws have been on the books since the early 1990s, but the state Legislature toughened them in July 1998, giving Shore communities the authority to distinguish between summertime and year-round rentals in setting rules and penalties. The laws cover offenses such as public drunkenness and urination, fighting, noise and residential overcrowding.

When Pringle took office in 1990, there were 1,200 rental properties in town. Over the years, a combination of escalating property values, strict enforcement efforts and the Animal House laws have driven landlords to sell to year-round residents.

Now Belmar has 328 summer rentals, 53 of which have been deemed Animal Houses. Most of the offenders are between 10th and 19th avenues, usually within two blocks from the ocean.

The town displays the locations of those houses and their status on a Google Earth satellite map (www.belmarrentals411.com). Icons of the police chief from "The Simpsons," Clancy Wiggum, denote the locations of rentals where a Monmouth County sheriff's officer is posted on weekends to keep an eye on things.

A rental property earns the Animal House designation with two convictions of "disorderly, indecent, tumultuous or riotous" behavior within any 12-month period. A third violation invites a sheriff's officer to be stationed outside the house on weekends.

Houses won't come off the list until they log four years without a violation.

This summer, the town also implemented a "beat the clock" system of penalties for noise violations. The later the noise, the higher the fine. Wee-hour violations can elicit a $750 fine.


'DESIGNATED RESIDENTS'?

To some tenants and property owners, the increasing crackdown is trampling their rights. They complain even outdoor conversations at normal tones have gotten them ticketed.

Rich Potter, 23, of Dunellen was visiting friends in the 16th Avenue rental being watched by the sheriff's officer.

"It's like you're living in dorms all over again," said Potter, a Rutgers University graduate. "It's all a kangaroo court. It's their season where they make money."

Potter said the house, which has seven people on the lease, will probably start having at least one sober resident or guest keep an eye on the others.

"Instead of a designated driver, you have a designated resident," he said.

Joey "Fist Pump" DiSalvo, 23, of Middlesex brought his free weights to lift outside as Potter talked to visitors. DiSalvo labeled the house's occupants "the biggest goofballs on the street" but said they are harmless.

"We're all here just to have a good time," DiSalvo said. "We're not disrespectful."

A couple of houses down, Amy Jones, 25, of Wood-Ridge sat on the porch with friends Marissa Hassen, 24, of Colts Neck and Tim Short, 24, of New York City as music from the stereo inside played at a moderate level.

Hassen described their rental as the "mellowest" on the block and said, "This is the only town I know that has these ridiculous rules."

Hackensack attorney Randy Pearce agrees.

Pearce has represented about a dozen landlords who contend Belmar goes too far. They complain a rental gets slapped with an Animal House designation even before a conviction or guilty plea.

Pearce said two guests visiting a rental on 16th Avenue were hit with $350 fines for noise violations just for speaking at normal levels after dark.

"If they trample on a couple of rights," Pearce said of Belmar officials, "they don't care."

He said the endgame of the town seems to be expelling summer rentals altogether.

Pringle denied that claim and talked about the need for people get along together. "In terms of peaceful coexistence between people who live here all year round and the people who visit, we're making some headway," he said.