Concerned citizens of the Village of Great Neck living in an apartment building at 1 Wooley Lane adjacent to the site of a proposed Hookah smoking lounge did not receive legal notice of a public hearing on July 16 to approve a hookah lounge which endangered their health.
The approval was granted. Concerned citizens were informed for the first time by a letter dated Sept. 13 by Mayor Kreitzman and the village board of trustees that the substances that, “will be smoked at the Hookah smoking lounge are harmful.”
The letter and the approval conditions were worded carefully so as not to prohibit the use of tobacco as a hookah ingredient which increased the already high risk to the public health.
In the letter, Mayor Kreitzman’s administration, known in the village as the “Better Government Party,” admitted that inhaling from Hookah smoking pipes, even without tobacco, created a health danger, not only to the smokers but also to village. It is a danger to children, their parents, shoppers and people walking home and to their houses of worship on the public sidewalk inches from the patio designated for Hookah smoking.
Smoking on the sidewalks next to the lounge was prohibited by a village ordinance, section 148-3, section 1, chapter 148 of the village code.
By permitting hookah smoking on the patio, where the hookah smoke will undoubtedly pass over and on the nearby public sidewalk, the village would endanger the health of the people of Great Neck Village contrary to the purpose of its own ordinance. The village cannot have it both ways. It cannot protect the public health with one hand and endanger the public health with its other hand.
The letter was on the letterhead of the Village of Great Neck with the names of the mayor and trustees: Norman Namdar, Barton Sobel and Mitchell Beckerman and was signed by the village clerk and addressed to the undersigned, Eleanor King and Charles Stein of Concerned Citizens of Great Neck Against Hookah Smoking.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advise that hookah smoking is dangerous involving the risk of oral, lung and stomach cancer and due to the typical 200 puffs and hours of inhalation in a typical smoking session, the risk is greater than smoking cigarettes
The CDC further advises that the charcoal used to heat the fruit, cherries, honey, cappuccino or tobacco smoked in the hookah, “increases the health risks by producing high levels of carbon monoxide, metals, and cancer - causing chemicals.”
Secondhand smoke from the hookahs poses a serious risk for the non-smokers walking on the public sidewalk because of the burning charcoal.
A legal notice published in the Great Neck Record of April 26 gave notice of an earlier public hearing on May 7 for a permit pursuant to village code section 575-129(F) to use the premises at 435 Middleneck Road, Village of Great Neck as a restaurant.
No approval was granted for the restaurant. No mention was made in the legal notice for the May 7 hearing that the proposed use was for a Hookah lounge.
The first knowledge that an application for a conditional use permit for a hookah lounge at 435 Middleneck Road in the village was approved by the board of trustees was in an article in the Great Neck Record dated July 24 by reporter Carol Frank.
No mention was made in the Great Neck Record article as to the date that the board of trustees approved the application for the conditional-use permit .
The application for a restaurant in the notice of the public hearing on May 7 (without any mention of a hookah lounge) was deceptive. It also appears that the original application was stealthily modified to provide that the intended use of the premises was for a hookah smoking lounge without giving proper legal notice to adjacent property owners as to the intended use of the premises for a Hookah smoking lounge. There was a total lack of transparency .
An affidavit under oath by Richland Management Company, the building manager of the 1 Wooley Lane apartment building was delivered to Mayor Kreitzman and the village board of trustees to the effect that Richland, “never, ever received any mail, letter, notification or any other correspondence from the Village of Great Neck concerning any Hookah lounge and or catering hall on the corner of Middle Neck Road and Piccadily Road or any other matter.” The community was denied full disclosure as to the village’s use plans for 435 Middleneck Road.
An extract of the minutes of the July 16 meeting of the board of trustees (which approved the hookah lounge) was provided by the village to the Concerned Citizens in response to its request for full disclosure.
The title of the board of trustees meeting was described as a “regular meeting.” The first sentence of the extract from the minutes states: Mayor Kreitzman opened the public hearing at 8:57 p.m. on the conditional-use permit application for a proposed hookah lounge at 435 Middleneck Road.
The problem: the community was not informed of the meeting or its purpose.
The factual complex is clear and convincing that the published legal notices, applications filed by the applicant and the failure to notify and serve parties in interest living adjacent to the hookah location as to the hearing dates were intended and designed to obfuscate and disguise the applicant’s intent to use the premises as a hookah lounge at the inception by referring to the intended use of premises as an ordinary restaurant (with no mention of a Hookah smoking lounge ).
Thus the intended use was hidden from interested parties living immediately adjacent to the premises and that the true intention of the applicant was to use the premises for patrons to smoke hookah water pipes fueled by charcoal which created a dangerous health problem to the patrons of the lounge and to the public through second hand smoke as set forth above in detail.
Although the mayor and board of trustees were asked for disclosure as to the applications and legal notices, at no time did the village board of trustees or the mayor offer the Concerned Citizens, interested parties living close to the lounge, with the date and details as to any second application or any modification of the first application which provided for a first public hearing on May 7. The hearing of July 16 was thus a sham as the most interested parties were kept in the dark.
Only two persons appeared at the July 16 hearing (besides the board of trustees, the mayor and village employees). One was Carol Frank, a reporter for the Great Neck Record who wrote the above article and the other was Jean Pierce of 44 Arrandale Ave. who was not an interested party living adjacent to the premises and required by law to be notified by publication of a legal notice and served by certified mail.
The legal notice as to the earlier application by the applicant of May 7 for a restaurant provided that, “A copy of the application is on file in the office of the village clerk and may be seen during normal business hours.” Although Charles Stein, a concerned resident of the village, living adjacent to the premises requested that the village clerk permit him to examine the applications on file after the approvals, his request was denied as the matter was already approved. An application for full disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act was made on Sept. 13 subject to a five business day delay and possible denial by the village.
It is interesting to note the fact that another village in Great Neck, Great Neck Plaza, has discussed the need to declare a moratorium on the opening of hookah lounges and other new forms of smoking such as the electronic cigarette, which has expanded at a rapid rate in the United States.
The moratorium is required to study these relatively new forms of smoking in the U.S.A. and to decide how to address the resulting health problems which are likely to develop. The village of Great Neck Plaza is to be complimented in acting openly and swiftly in the public interest to address the growing threats to our public health from harmful smoking, contrary to the approach of the Village of Great Neck.
Eleanor King and Charles Stein
Concerned Citizens of Great Neck Village Against Hookah Smoking in Our Village
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