Ruling Lowers the Boom on City Island Cannon

A City Island yacht club’s century-old tradition of saluting the Star-Spangled Banner has ended; complaints from a group of angry neighbors led to a court ruling preventing it from bursting bombs in the air.A state appellate court ruled yesterday that First Amendment rights of the Harlem Yacht Club were not violated when city noise inspectors fined the organization for firing a miniature cannon at its sundown flag-lowering ceremony.Officials of the club — founded in 1856 and located on City Island, a part of the Bronx surrounded by the Eastchester Bay on the Long Island Sound — said they fired the two-foot-long cannon every day to proclaim their patriotism and to remind members to salute the flag.“Petitioners can still show respect for the flag by firing a cannon at lower sound levels,” the fivemember panel wrote, deciding that city’s sound ordinances meet the legitimate government interest of protecting citizens from “unwelcome noise.”The commodore of the Harlem Yacht Club, Tex Stephenson, said he was disappointed with the ruling.“We’re as American as apple pie,” Mr. Stephenson said yesterday after learning the court had ruled against the club, where he keeps a 35-foot aft-cabin Californian. “It’s sad,” he said, and suggested that the New York Police Department detonates much louder explosions nearby at its Rodman’s Neck Firing Range.The dispute dates back to the summer of 2000, when a coalition of neighbors signed a petition urging the club to find “another maritime tradition that does not impact the quality of life of your cheek-to-jowl neighbors in such a nerve-shattering fashion,” according to a transcript of the club’s hearing before a city administrative law judge.Several weeks later, a noise inspector from the city’s Department of Environmental Protection traveled to City Island to investigate the complaints. Inspector J.R. Zimmerman of the Night Enforcement Unit testified that, his sound meter in hand, he “jumped” when club officials fired the cannon, and characterized the shots as both “startling” and “annoying.”The shot registered 93.8 decibels on the meter, according to the transcript, and the club was fined $350.In an attempt to assuage the neighbors and the law, the club switched to 10-gauge from 12-gauge shot, but Mr. Zimmerman testified that even the lower-gauge shell “still sounded really loud.”A senior counsel in the appeals office of the city’s law department, Susan Colt, said she was pleased that the court had “recognized the city’s right to enforce noise laws,” and was “happy this ruling puts an end to a practice that caused daily distress to local residents.”Yesterday’s decision marks the third panel in seven years to rule against the club.Mr. Stephenson vowed to ask New York’s Court of Appeals to reverse yesterday’s decision. “It’s our way of respecting the flag and paying attention to the traditions of boating that go back long before any of us were alive,” Mr. Stephenson said.But a half hour before sunset, he said that the club wouldn’t be heralding the lowering of the flag with cannon fire. “Probably not tonight,” Mr. Stephenson said. “Because we’re not a rich club and we can’t afford the fines.”

Ruling Lowers the Boom on City Island Cannon

Ruling Lowers the Boom on City Island Cannon

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