| Issue #49, March 16, 2007 |
Barnyard Noises
Cocka Doodle Is Good in East Hampton But Doodle Doo is Not
By Dan Rattiner
Two weeks ago, I wrote an article about East Hampton Village’s attempts to regulate bonfires at the beach. They are considering a bill that would require all bonfires to be no more than two feet by two feet by two feet, no less than 100 feet from a dune and no less than 50 feet from an endangered specie.
I thought as a result of writing about this ridiculous business, the local authorities might decide to just take things a little bit easier on the populace as far as regulations and codes are concerned. I know it’s winter. There’s not much to do at town meetings and they have to all show up every week.
My attempts at this, however, have had the opposite effect. Now East Hampton Town is jumping on the bandwagon with a far-reaching and even more ridiculous proposal involving chickens, and as a result these public servants will now be spotlighted in this paper in what I am sorry to say, may become a weekly column.
We all know how important our farmland is. We raise money to save it. We allow our municipalities to buy development rights so farming can go on in certain places forever. We treasure all our farms.
What we don’t treasure, at least as far as East Hampton Township is concerned, (not East Hampton Village) are the sounds that some of the actual barnyard animals emit. Animals, per se, are okay. But put a cork in it.
Last week, East Hampton Town began discussing a new possible law that would ban roosters from crowing closer than 100 feet to a property line. Apparently, several members of the Town Board who live in Springs (where I live), specifically Bruce Lowen and Debbie Foster, have been awakened at the crack of dawn by the sound of a rooster crowing.
It is unclear if it is the same rooster that they both hear. All roosters crow when the sun comes up. So if there is more than one resident who is raising hens and roosters, it could be two or three or even a dozen.
Where I live on Three Mile Harbor Road, I sometimes hear a rooster crowing at dawn nearby. It is a proud crowing. Roosters have short memories. And so, every morning they proudly announce the arrival of a new orb on in the sky. They are barnyard Copernicuses. And they have been doing this, all the roosters I have ever encountered, as a matter of course, since the beginning of time, or since the beginning of whenever roosters evolved from before they became roosters.
Lowen announced that the rooster he hears crows when the moon is full when there’s a glow in the sky. It goes on and on. Lowen is mistaken. The rooster crows loudly to announce his new discovery. He crows loud enough so that everybody in the area can be made aware of it. For the rest of the day he may crow periodically, but it is as nothing compared to the morning alarm.
“These roosters are the cause of a growing epidemic of insomnia in the Springs community,” Lowen said. Then he had this to say, for those on the Board who might be considering opposing his proposition. “I am not proposing we have a chicken police. I want enforcement of a ban on rooster crowing on a complaint by complaint basis.”
Discussion proceeded about whether 100 feet was a big enough distance from the property line to protect neighbors from this horrible sound. There was discussion about people who have roosters but who live on half acre lots, of which there are many in Springs (and there are a lot in North Sea and in Hampton Bays), and whether a lesser number of feet could be allowed for those encumbered by such smaller dimensions.
“We are not proposing doing away with chickens altogether,” one of the Board members said. “People should be allowed to have chickens.”
Then there was a discussion about chickens who have been on a property for a considerable amount of time. Should they be grandfathered in? Can you grandfather a chicken?
Obviously, the board is less than fully knowledgeable about chickens, as far as crowing habits and longevity are concerned. Also, I might add, that where I come from, roosters can be heard from as far away as a quarter of a mile when they get going to announce their latest discovery of the sun. The Board is going to have big problems if they pass this ordinance. And yes, as the lawyers threaten lawsuits on behalf of distressed clients, you are going to have to have chicken police who can come onto a property to pace off the distance between a property line fence and a chicken.
While I am on the subject of property lines and chicken police and lawyers, it might be worthwhile mentioning a variance that is currently being considered by the Southampton Town Board.
About half a century ago, a Southampton man built the Southampton Driving Range on County Road 39. It’s been operating just fine ever since.
In recent years, however, balls hit from the tees on this driving range have occasionally rained down on an industrial property to the east, causing the owner of that establishment to hire a lawyer to file a lawsuit. His workers were constantly looking over toward the driving range. Golf balls would come down. There was the anxiety factor, the productivity factor, the safety factor. The papers were served.
I have wondered about what might be the cause of this sudden change in the accuracy of those using the driving range. It is true that with the newer titanium clubs, you can hit the ball farther. Are golfers getting longer but less accurate? We have the obesity epidemic. Fat people in general lack the graceful, supple swing of thin people. Well, I will leave this discussion to the experts.
The interesting thing about this is that the owner of the driving range hired a tough lawyer to defend him from the lawsuit. And at the same time, he let it be known that he would build a 40 foot tall fence of netting to keep the golf balls from going over into the industrial property, if the town would let him do it.
The owner of the industrial property thought this was a good idea and suggested that he and the driving range owner get together to sort things out. Apparently the driving range owner thought this was a good idea, but the lawyer he hired did not. He said let them sue. There will be no meeting.
Well, this past week Southampton Town is considering an application for a 40 foot tall net. The driving range owner fired his lawyer and hired another in order to arrange the meeting.
“We settled it in one meeting,” Eric Bregman, the lawyer for the industrial park said.
Now the town has to go along with it. We hope they do.
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