Nov 21, 2009 7:24 am US/Eastern
Battle Lines Drawn Over Loud Brooklyn Church Bells
Residents In Marine Park Duking It Out Over Recorded Music That Plays On The Hour At Local House Of Worship
By JOHN METAXAS, CBS 2 HD News
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
Calls to silence some loud church bells in a Brooklyn neighborhood were falling on deaf ears on Friday night.
The bells at St. Thomas Aquinas church in Marine Park are just too loud, according to some residents here.
"I gotta live with this every day. I'm in there trying to eat or something, just relaxing. I don't want to hear this," resident John Russo said.
"You stand on a certain corner of this block, when you hear it it bounces off the walls. You can't believe it," resident Joseph Zelinski added.
The sound is not actually bells, but really recorded bells piped thru speakers on the roof of the church rectory. They ring on the hour, every day from 9 a.m. until 7 p.m., even earlier on Sundays.
Russo, who lives right across the street, said the sound is so loud he cannot have a conversation when he's in his backyard, or even inside his home.
But when he and other neighbors approached the church with a petition, they got nowhere.
And so a war of words has started. Russo has put signs on his lawn against what he calls noise pollution. Other residents have lined up with the church and its pastor, the Rev. Thomas Doyle.
"It's nice and peaceful to me. It's music to the soul. I feel sorry for him, but if you don't want it then move. I hate to see it, but just move then or deal with it," Midland Park resident John Cuzzolino said.
"We're one block from Flatbush Avenue. There are trucks, buses, people blaring their radios all day long, at all hours of the night. If you want solitude I think you need to move out to the country," Marine Park resident Christopher Spinelli said.
The city has told Russo told noise regulations cannot be enforced against a religious institution.
"All I want 'em to do is lower it or not play it as many times for no reason," Russo said.
But these neighbors said they won't give up the fight. Having gotten no satisfaction from city authorities, they said they may seek to invoke church canon law to try to get the bells to stop.
CBS 2 HD went to the church for comment, but no one answered at the church rectory.
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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