Pictured above: Bamboozle in Asbury Park, in the vicinity of the North Beach condominium complex.
Some residents living in the North Beach condominium complex on the northern Asbury Park beachfront feel that they have been bamboozled.
Resident Ellen Muller attended last week’s City Council meeting with questions about what is happening in her neighborhood, between Sixth and Seventh Avenue and Ocean Avenue and Kingsley Street
Muller said much of the area’s landscaping was either destroyed or removed preparing for last year’s Bamboozle Festival, a three-day musical festival held on the northern beachfront on May 18-20. Tens of thousands of people attended the three-day event.
Muller said plantings were removed and dunes and dune grass were destroyed.
“And what Bamboozle didn’t destroy, Sandy did. It looks like old Beirut after the bombings,” she said.
She said that both Sixth and Seventh Avenues are in a state of disrepair, with potholes, as is an adjacent traffic circle on Ocean Avenue.
“No one seems to know who is responsible for the paving,” she said.
Muller said her high-rise complex pays millions of dollars in taxes yearly “so I don’t feel like we are asking a lot.”
“What do you (the council) know? Who can help us?” she asked.
Mayor Myra Campbell said that conditions in that area have been an ongoing concern and that the governing body will look into the solution.
Muller said she has been in contact with waterfront redevelopment company iStar Financial who said they are not responsible.
City Manager Terence Reidy said he will look into the matter. He said the Berkeley-Carteret Hotel is responsible for portions of Sixth Avenue and that he will follow up to see who is responsible for Seventh Avenue and the circle.
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Yes, it’s true the Light of Day concerts will be held in Asbury Park’s Paramount Theatre on the boardwalk.
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Asbury Park may limit the hours the city’s four retail package goods liquor stores can open in the early morning hours.
Some residents have been complaining about school children having to walk past a liquor store that begins selling alcohol at 7 a.m.
Councilwoman Amy Quinn said recently that she drove by the liquor store in the early morning to confirm the reports made by residents.
“There was a line of people waiting to buy alcohol,” she said.
In response, the city is having City Attorney Frederick C. Raffetto draft an ordinance that will be introduced at the next meeting limiting opening hours to 9 a.m. where they are now 7 a.m. on weekdays and Saturdays. Stores can open at noon on Sundays.
The change will apply to only retail package good stores, of which there are only four in the city.
Councilman John Moor questioned whether the ordinance should be introduced before owners of the package goods stores have some input.
“Do they get a fair shot at saying why they are open then or do we just do it?” he asked.
Raffetto said that anyone concerned about the ordinance would have an opportunity to express their opinion during its public hearing, which is required by law after the ordinance is officially introduced.
“There will be a public hearing,” he said.
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