New Hyde Park reinstalled the hoops on the basketball courts at Nuzzi Field last Thursday after taking them down for two weeks in an attempt to curb unruliness at the park.
Vincent Ambrosch, 54, who lives on 8th Avenue, said the temporary removal of the hoops helped prevent teenagers from urinating on his lawn. He said it was a welcome change after spending more than 12 years attempting to combat the problem.
“I’m here to compliment you guys for making it much better,” Ambrosch said at the village Board of Trustees meeting Tuesday night. “But putting the hoops up and down, up and down, it’s just going to result in the same thing. It doesn’t fix the problem long term.”
Mayor Lawrence J. Montreuil thanked Ambrosch for his input and asked for recommendations about combating “bad behavior” on the courts.
“We get the overflow of [of misbehaving youths] from Floral Park when they get kicked out of there,” Ambrosch said. “These ain’t kids on bicycles. They’re 21 year olds in cars.”
Ambrosch suggested putting up a fence around the courts similar to one at Memorial Park so the morning park attendant can lock up the courts if there are any problems, while leaving the playground available for the younger children.
“We had the same issue of bad behavior at Memorial Park, so we came up with new rules,” Mayor Montreuil said. “Once we trained everyone on the new rules, we put the hoops back up.”
“Obviously, we’d love to manage Nuzzi courts like we do at Memorial Park, which is all-enclosed,” the mayor said. “But we can’t unless we put up a fence.”
The mayor said the courts are not big enough to replace with tennis courts, so the village may consider converting the courts into another feature.
“We don’t have a dog run in town, so we’ve considered turning the courts into one,” the mayor said. “Do you think other residents would like that idea if we surveyed them?”
“That would be a lot better than the people using the Little League fields as a dog run now,” Ambrosch said.
