Neighbors Decry A ‘Carousel’ Of Headaches
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A parking hearing led to residents neighboring The Carousel strip club in Huntington Station to demand a town crackdown on illicit activities they say are ruining their quality of life. (Long Islander News photo/Danny Schrafel)
What started as a mundane parking code hearing during last week’s town board meeting quickly escalated into an evisceration of a Huntington Station strip club.
During that Nov. 6 hearing, aimed at amending town code to prohibit overnight parking some portions of residential streets near the road, neighbors of The Carousel, at 522 Jericho Turnpike, urged the Huntington Town Board to crack down hard to end what they described as a quality-of-life nightmare in their community.
The proposal would prohibit parking from 6 p.m. to 5 a.m. on both sides of Denise Court within 230 feet of Oak Crest Drive, and implement a similar no-parking zone on the westbound side of Oak Crest Drive from Jericho Turnpike to Denise Court.
Neighbors say Carousel patrons who don’t want to be seen parking in the strip club’s parking lot use the side streets to park, and that’s led to headaches galore, according to residents.
Donald Mueller and his wife, Diane, who have lived next to the Carousel for six years, said they’ve been met with, “on numerous occasions,” people asleep in their cars in the morning and “loud voices and arguments from patrons” on their way back to the cars late at night. Many patrons use their cul-de-sac for a fast U-turn, he added.
Mueller said his property has been littered with trash, cigarettes, clothing (including men’s and women’s underwear), sanitary napkins, condoms and, “this summer, somebody stooped to a new level of low” and defecated in front of his house, he said.
“I know it was from a human because this person actually left toilet paper on my property that they wiped themselves with,” Mueller said.
Joe Marshall, a next-door neighbor to the Carousel, painted a similar picture, and said he’s had many restless nights since moving to Huntington Station this February.
“We actually have men urinating in our yard,” he said. “I’m constantly cleaning up beer bottles, condoms. We found some crack cocaine… It’s just a constant being waken up at 3, 4 in the morning when the gentlemen are leaving the club.”
Supervisor Frank Petrone said the residents’ concerns would be referred to Suffolk County police, and Public Safety officers will attempt to coordinate with law enforcement.
“I think we’ve heard some things that present us [with] the fact that there’s a little more here than just parking restrictions,” Petrone said.
Town spokesman A.J. Carter said Wednesday the town issued a “loud-music letter” to the club in June and sent Public Safety to the site in July after a series of complaints.
The town could approve the new parking restrictions as soon as Dec. 9.
