On Feb. 3, the Maplewood Township Committee voted to introduce an ordinance allowing basketball hoops and other sports equipment to be situated curbside between April 1 and December 31.
The ordinance will receive its second reading, a hearing and final vote on Feb. 17.
The ordinance would amend the town code to allow temporary sports equipment to be placed in the grass median beside the curb. Although there was little discussion at the Feb. 3 meeting, curbside hoops have been the subject of much debate in previous meetings. The ordinance was recommended by the Code Enforcement Committee, which began studying the matter after local residents protested receiving summons fining them for curbside temporary basketball hoops last summer.
Although those residents received a reprieve last September, many worried that the Township Committee might reverse the gesture of allowing curbside hoops when they received news last December that the equipment had to come down as of January 1, 2015, in order not to obstruct snowplows.
Mayor Vic DeLuca noted that the Department of Public Works had asked for the equipment removal “in snow months because there have been instances where snow equipment has hit them.” DeLuca said the proposed ordinance would allow the hoops in the non-snow months “notwithstanding any other emergency situation.”
Both Township Committeeman Marlon K. Brownlee and Committeewoman India Larrier — who chairs the Code Enforcement Committee — noted that the ordinance also allows for other equipment like lacrosse goals and soccer nets. Brownlee wanted to counter talk that “this was somehow a comment on basketball hoops in particular.”
