By Peter Smith
October 05, 2006
CUMBERLAND—Adam Szafran owns the nine-bedroom duplex at 8 Winn Road, where he lives with eight of his friends. They play live music in the barn every Wednesday and, every three or four months, they host a large party, including one planned for Oct 21.
They even have a Web site—8winnroad.com—that promotes their work hard, party hard lifestyle and proclaims, “Life’s great at the 8.”
That may change, if William and Emily Hawkinson get their way.
The Hawkinsons, who live at 7 Winn Road, say Szafran, 25, his housemates and their friends make too much noise. After six months of calling police with “another complaint from 7 Winn about the noise at 8 Winn Road,” they went to the Town Council last week to seek enactment of a noise ordinance.
The Town Council scheduled a public hearing for its Oct. 9 meeting at 7 p.m.
On Monday, council chairman Steve Moriarty, who also heads the Ordinance Subcommittee, said he plans to recommend that the council consider law enforcement under existing state criminal laws, rather than creating a new ordinance on such short schedule.
“Disorderly conduct may be sufficient to address this problem,” Moriarty said, “but we’re still examining it.”
At the Sept. 25 Town Council meeting, William Hawkinson told the council his problems began when Szafran returned from Iraq in May 2005.
“He moved in with six to eight of his buddies,” he said. “Sometimes their loud music begins as early as 11 a.m.”
In an interview, Szafran admitted to playing music during the day.
“It’s pretty much what I would consider normal hours,” he said. Noise ordinances often specify certain times of the day and Szafran said, “I wouldn’t even be affected by a noise ordinance.”
Hawkinson, who lives diagonally across Winn Road, told the council that his family’s windows rattled and their foundation shook when Szafran played music.
“We actually had to turn (the volume on) our TV up,” he said.
Hawkinson also said 8 Winn Road is out of character with his neighborhood; he called it a “frat house.”
“The place is a pit,” he said. “I’m not afraid to say that. The front porch is falling off.”
The residential neighborhood, next to the Falmouth Country Club, houses many country club members. At least one home has a private tennis court. Hawkinson told the council he had neighbors as old as 80.
“It’s a neighborhood that doesn’t have a lot of young people,” Szafran said.
But like older residents, Szafran said he likes the open space and prefers nine holes to throwing darts. (He also likes Miller Light and beer pong.) He doesn’t wake up at 8:30 a.m. on weekends and he said he doesn’t call police “even when my neighbor mows his lawn at seven in the morning.”
Szafran said he was respectful: When he invites friends for parties, he invites his neighbors.
Before a July 4th party, Szafran sent a letter, dated June 28, to 35 neighbors, which explained his motives for the party.
“We are pretty much a group of young professionals,” the letter said, “we work hard during the week, and we like to play hard. … We maintain a great relationship with the Cumberland Police Department and I feel bad when they have to come out because we are a little too loud. I can’t say it enough, please don’t hesitate to give us a call or stop over and have a beer.”
Hawkinson read the letter differently. “(The letter) essentially said, ‘Dear neighbor, please don’t call the police,'” he told the council.
“These parties have excessive noise,” Hawkinson said last week, “and, on occasion, obscenities.”
Szafran on Monday said “nothing illegal happens at the party. I don’t know why anyone would think that.”
Police have made no arrests at 8 Winn Road. Fifteen noise complaints have been filed in the last six months, all originating from a single complainant.
Town Manager Bill Shane said the police response to repeated calls was “a waste of public dollars.” Shane said police can only bring charges of “disturbing the peace,” which is a subjective call by officers.
Cumberland has no noise-measuring equipment, but if a noise ordinance goes into effect, a decibel meter, ranging from $500 to $3,000 in cost, would be necessary for enforcement.
In a noise complaint on Sept 23, the caller said: “Do something about the noise or (I) will do something on (my) own.”
The Sept 23 report concluded when responding police Officer Angelo Mazzone reported, “(It is) clear noise is not unreasonable.”
“It’s not a big deal,” Szafran said of the complaints. “I think it’s bogus and immature.”
On Sept. 23, police also spoke with Szafran, who said his band would stop playing music at 7:30 p.m. Szafran said police also told him not to approach the complainant because of the potential for violence. Szafran said he didn’t want a fight, but he said police told him: “It’s not you we’re worried about.”