Cayuga Village residents want curfew law amended

by Larry Austin
Niagara Wheatfield Tribune, September 28, 2006

According to one resident of the Cayuga Village Mobile Home Park, tenants of the park are so fed up with rowdy nighttime behavior by outsiders that they’re afraid to leave their homes.

Cheryl Reynolds of Cayuga Village Mobile Homeowners Association met with the Town of Niagara Town Board at a work session earlier this month and said youths from the neighboring city of Niagara Falls come through people’s yards and damage property.

Last week’s Tribune Town of Niagara Police Blotter on page 19 described one incident from Sept. 7 in which patrol responded to a complaint that 30 to 40 people were congregating in the park and preparing to fight.

“We’re trying really hard, trying to find a way to make it safer for people to live there,” Reynolds told the board in hopes that the board would consider amending its town curfew laws to cover private property.

“People are moving out because they’re getting tired of it,” Reynolds said.

To make matters worse, Reynolds said the residents of Cayuga Village are charged a fee to cover cost of private security, but they receive no such service.

Town of Niagara Supervisor Steve Richards said the Cayuga Village residents were being, in essence, “double taxed” by their landlords.

“I get calls continually, at least two or three calls a week from out there, and it’s a shame that the owners of Cayuga Village charge those residents for security and aren’t supplying it,” Richards said. “And then they try to pawn it off on government. That’s not fair to us.”

“We don’t have a lot of power inside your private development,” Richards told Reynolds, adding that because Cayuga Village is a private mobile home park, the town could be accused by other taxpayers of providing security service on a private property. The town has been told by private attorneys that they can’t enforce the curfew on private property, Richards said.

The town board and police are concerned with maintaining the privacy rights for everyone if they enforce public violations on private property in Cayuga Village, said Town of Niagara Chief of Police James Suitor.

Cayuga Village has the same issues as other densely populated communities, Suitor said. He said Cayuga Village, the largest trailer park in town, is considered a gated community.

“Our local law violation, for curfew violations, specifically states it’s got to be in a public venue,” Suitor said. Public to government is public roadways, streets, sidewalks, parks, or similar common property, he explained.

“If it’s against the law on private property in Cayuga Village for having your children out at an inopportune time, what’s the difference in having your kids playing in your front yard at your house? The town’s trying to walk a fine line and it’s looking for legal guidance,” Suitor said.

The town had a problem in years past with juveniles and instituted the curfew for those under 17, Suitor said. The police cite the parents for violators under 16, he said, which forces the parents to take responsibility for their child’s behavior.

“We’re in there already on complaints.” Richards noted regarding misdemeanors and felonies, however. “They’re not public streets, and our code says public streets” under curfew law.

Richards said he would prefer that they could go there to take care of “the nonsense” that goes on almost nightly to force parents to control their kids.

“You’re on the right track,” Richards told Reynolds. He likened curfew enforcement to the town’s efforts toward code enforcement of housing.

“I want to help those residents,” Richards said later. “I feel for them.”