A once-quiet East Norwich is in a noisy back-and-forth volley with the Pine Hollow Country Club over three pickleball courts the club erected last year amid the colossal surge of the sport.
Neighbors claim the incessant pop pop pop that has triggered battles between residents and players elsewhere on Long Island has rendered their backyards useless because of the commotion.
But recently a new wave of complaints connected to the courts, which are adjacent to a row of homes on Huckleberry Lane, also has emerged.
Brian Gaffney, 34, the owner of one of those homes, said he has seen players exposing themselves and urinating in plain sight. He said he also has heard shouts of profanity drifting over while his three daughters were playing in his family’s backyard.
“It’s gotten to the point of egregiousness that we’re not going to let this go,” Gaffney said in an interview.
Gaffney and one of his neighbors, Steve Kartsonis, brought their concerns to a Town of Oyster Bay meeting in early October, where they requested help from elected officials to rectify the issue after alleged inaction by the club over the course of months.
Kartsonis, 49, said the club had been a cooperative neighbor since he moved to his home in 2016, with the former tennis court posing no problem.
But after one court was modified into multiple pickleball courts in August 2022, he said the high-pitch sounds became an issue.
“It’s affected our quality of life,” Kartsonis said. “I can’t entertain in my yard, I can’t sit in my yard.”
Oyster Bay Supervisor Joseph Saladino said he was “personally outraged” at a surveillance photo from Kartsonis’ home presented at the Oct. 3 town hall meeting that showed a person urinating just feet behind the fence separating the homes from the pickleball courts.
Oyster Bay spokesman Brian Nevin said there is a code enforcement case against the club pending in Nassau County District Court.
The town previously…
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