Despite allegations of violations of their court orders, Lake Terrace is asking the Court to permit them to continue to operate. Lake Terrace is also asking for a Reconsideration of, and lifting of, these court orders.
Lake Terrace has been embattled in litigation since November 2020 when their neighbor sued them for not having ever received Township Zoning Board approval for a banquet hall.
After an initial injunction hearing on the matter, on February 3, 2021, Ocean County Superior Court Judge Marlene Ford signed an Interim Order permitting Lake Terrace - pending the outcome of the lawsuit - to continue hosting weddings, but with certain restrictions including limiting the occupancy to 712 seated guests, barring any outdoor activities or events on the banquet hall property, and requiring all parking to be maintained on-site only.
Judge Ford signed this Order as a interim compromise to permit Lake Terrace to continue operating while the lawsuit continues, but with restraints.
At subsequent hearings, Judge Ford added additional conditions including that no further outdoor events or gatherings of any sort at all take place outdoors within 1,000 feet of Lake Terrace and that they must hire "uniformed security guards, who are current or former law enforcement officers, employed by a professional businesses that provide traffic control or is otherwise experienced in traffic control" to enforce the parking restrictions.
At one point Judge Ford asked, "if there are no more than 700 people at the events and there are 379 parking spaces, and it's 2 people per car, why is the parking lot not sufficient?"
Mr. Fiorovanti innocently responded "I do not know."
Judge Ford retorted, "if the real plans for this use were ever presented before the proper land use board, the Board probably would have required additional parking." Judge Ford then reiterated "parking on-street is prohibited. Parking can only be in their parking lot. If there is not enough parking in their own lot, maybe they should bus in the guests."
Judge Ford has previously warned that her permitting Lake Terrace to continue to operate with certain conditions was a "compromise" and that the owners of Lake Terrace have reciprocated by acting in "the ultimate lack of good faith" and therefore she is "one second away from revoking their Certificate of Occupancy" (which would shut them down completely).
At one motion hearing, Judge Ford found Lake Terrace in violation of the court orders and ordered them to pay a $5,000 sanction as well as legal fees incurred by Clayton as a result of filing their motion.
Since that time, Lake Terrace has finally submitted an application to the Township's Zoning Board for a Use Variance to permit them to operate legally. However, their hearing has been cancelled numerous times due to legal objections raised by Sudler regarding the Board meeting notices.
As such, seeing that they may never actually get to a public hearing, as previously reported here on FAA News, Lake Terrace filed a Motion for Reconsideration, arguing that their court orders, including sanctions and award of legal fees, should be stayed withdrawn or stayed pending the outcome of the Zoning Board hearing.
In response, as previously reported here on FAA News, Sudler shot right back by slamming Lake Terrace with a Cross-Motion to Enforce Litigants Rights, seeking to completely shut down the banquet hall for numerous violations of their interim court orders.
The Cross-Motion to Enforce Litigants Rights alleges that at a number of recent weddings held at Lake Terrace, numerous patrons were parked along the adjacent roadways and in adjacent parking lots including the Plaintiff's parking lots - all in violation of the court orders.
They further allege that not only did the LCSW members - who are tasked with enforcing the parking restrictions - not stop patrons from parking as they please, they even directed patrons to park in other parking lots including Bnos Brocha's lot!
"The Defendant's deliberate non-compliance with the February 3, 2021 Order renders their actions unjustifiable and inexcusable. Due to their Defendant's repeated violations, as well as their ability and refusal to comply with same, the Court should find that Defendants are in willful and unjustifiable violation of said Orders, and the Court should once again impose sanctions against the Defendant's and issue an Order for attorneys fees."
Mr. Shea also asserts that Lake Terrace's motion to waive the court orders should be denied as "they failed to identify a single matter which warrants Reconsideration as every single one of their claims have already been considered and rejected by Juge Ford."
Mr. Shea is also seeking sanctions for violating the court orders as well as his legal fees for filing the Cross-Motion.
Attorney Matthew Fiorovanti Esq. representing Lake Terrace has now filed a Reply Brief to their Motion for Reconsideration as well as Opposition to Sudler's Cross-Motion to Enforce Litigants Rights.
Mr. Fiorovanti wrote:
Plaintiffs subscribe to the theory that the best defense is a good offense. Rather than directly respond to the substantive issues raised in Defendants’ motion for reconsideration, Plaintiffs have filed a cross-motion to enforce litigant’s rights premised on weddings that took place at Lake Terrace over a month prior to the filing of the cross-motion. The court should view Plaintiffs’ cross-motion for what it truly is: an obvious tactical maneuver designed, yet again, to distract the court from the substantive issues raised in Defendants’ motion for reconsideration.
This Court should not be distracted enough by Plaintiffs’ repetitive and lengthy arguments to forget what is most important: the present and long-standing use of the Property by Lake Terrace has been that of a place for weddings, celebrations and other activities cherished by the local community for many, many years, run by law-abiding local Township residents, and is in no way injurious to the rights of the community such that legal action against it is warranted.
Furthermore, Plaintiffs’ papers do not deny that they have launched multiple lawsuits in this Court, filed complaints with state agencies, and fight at the municipal level - all directed against Lake Terrace - because the goal of their bad-faith campaign against their neighbor is to force Lake Terrace to sell them the Property at half its market value and shut it down.
According to Plaintiffs, three “large events” took place at Lake Terrace on January 11, 16 and 18, 2023 - more than a month prior to the filing of the cross-motion - during which patrons parked along the public streets where parking is otherwise permitted and in Plaintiffs’ parking lot (well after normal business hours). Plaintiffs then speculate that simply because patrons parked on Plaintiffs’ property or along the public streets, Defendants must have “allowed” or affirmatively directed such patrons to park there. In the absence of any actual evidence, that is a bridge too far.
Plaintiffs do not present the certification of any person who either gave or received a directive to park on Plaintiffs’ property or along the public streets or in the parking lot of the Bnos Brocha school. Plaintiffs’ failure to present any actual support for its cross-motion is understandable: no such proof exists.
Lake Terrace engaged Lakewood Community Safety Watch (“LCSW”)/Shomrim, a renowned local safety watch organization that consists of well-trained staff with traffic and safety experience, to provide traffic support services prior to each event. Lake Terrace expressly informed LCSW/Shomrim of the court’s rulings and the conditions that the patrons were required to follow.
At no point did Defendants provide any directive to LCSW/Shomrim to have the patrons park in Plaintiffs’ parking lot or the Bnos Bracha parking lot as baselessly suggested by Plaintiffs.
Despite the sheer size of the submission, there is simply no proof presented by Plaintiffs to support the strategically filed cross-motion to enforce litigant’s rights. The court should deny Plaintiffs’ cross-motion accordingly.
Plaintiffs suggest that Defendants’ motion for reconsideration is “suspiciously timed” and
is nothing more than “thinly veiled forum shopping.”
Plaintiffs’ accusations are baseless, as this motion has been necessitated by Plaintiffs’ recent and repeated interference with KBS’s use variance and site plan application and is filed in the exact same forum.
As explained in detail in Defendants’ initial brief, Plaintiffs have done everything possible to frustrate and delay the public hearing on KBS’s application before the Board. It is this delay, strategically extended multiple times by Plaintiffs, which has resulted in significant financial harm to Defendants, that has necessitated the instant motion for reconsideration. It is simply inequitable, unfair and financially harmful to force Defendants to continue to operate under the arbitrary restrictions while Plaintiffs continue to interfere with the scheduling of the use variance and site plan hearing. There is nothing “suspicious” about this timing.
Conspicuously absent from Plaintiffs’ voluminous submission is any direct rebuttal of the
substantive arguments raised by Defendants regarding the impropriety of the arbitrary restrictions
on the continued operation of Lake Terrace imposed by the court in the February 3, 2021 Order,
the August 10, 2022 Order and the August 26, 2022 Order. Even more glaringly obvious, Plaintiffs
completely ignore Defendants’ substantive arguments regarding the impropriety of the $5,000
sanction imposed in the August 10, 2022 Order and the $12,000 attorney fee award imposed in the
January 30, 2023 Order.
Specifically:
• Plaintiffs completely ignore Defendants’ argument that only the Township of Lakewood, and not the court, is authorized to impose zoning conditions or restrictions under the police power—in fact, Plaintiffs strangely quote, verbatim, the case law that supports this principle of law at pages 52-53 of their brief;
• Plaintiffs do not, and cannot, rebut the argument that the court did not find that Plaintiffs would suffer irreparable harm in the event that Lake Terrace continued to operate without the conditions and restrictions randomly imposed by the court;
• Plaintiffs completely ignore Defendants’ argument that the court was not authorized to
require Defendants to prevent people from parking on privately owned properties or
public streets where parking is permitted—in fact, Plaintiffs’ only response to this
argument is to label it as “arrogant” at page 50 of their brief.
This Court should reconsider its past orders as it cannot and should not be the legislator and enforcer of novel regulations which are contrary to long-standing existing law and applied only to Lake Terrace, especially when these new rules are made at the behest of a complaining neighbor with a vested economic interest in seeing his neighbor fail.
Additionally, the court failed to consider the substantial financial harm to Defendants as a result of the arbitrary restrictions. To award any injunctive relief, the court must balance the equities and find that such balance weighs in favor of imposing the requested injunction. When weighing the harm associated with the minor “nuisance issues” raised by Plaintiffs—which do not come close to meeting the irreparable harm standard—with the substantial financial harm suffered by Defendants as a result of the restrictions, the scales tip heavily against any injunctive relief.
This motion is necessary because it is now abundantly clear that Plaintiffs’ campaign will
not conclude, but instead is being intentionally delayed as part of their war of attrition, multi-lawsuit attack against Lake Terrace. Plaintiffs are not interested in a fair decision on the merits - it will not favor them - and Defendants have incurred substantial, irretrievable monetary losses over
the past two years complying with these rules unique to it and defending Plaintiffs’ costly attacks on multiple fronts. Indeed, whether or not the Court had the legal authority to shut down the hall at Plaintiffs’ behest is not the real issue before the court – the exact same arguments for that drastic and undue relief have been made and correctly rejected at least three times by this Court. The issue at hand is, instead, in choosing not to, was it appropriate for the Court to then create, impose and enforce unique legal duties on Defendants which precedent and local ordinances make clear simply do not exist.
Reconsideration of these past restrictive orders is appropriate under these circumstances.
Judge Hodgson is scheduled to hold oral arguments on Lake Terrace's Motion for Reconsideration as well as on Sudler's Cross-Motion to Enforce Litigants Rights this Friday.
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