NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- Staten Island residents are fed up with window-rattling bass reverberating from late-night “boom” parties in New Jersey, with one local official saying the racket amounts to “interstate noise warfare” that must be silenced ASAP.
Staten Island District Attorney Michael McMahon sent a letter to Elizabeth Mayor J. Christian Bollwage about the “near-nightly” parties. The letter was signed by every elected official in the borough, Democrat and Republican, he said.
McMahon told 1010 WINS’ Newsline With Brigitte Quinn on Friday that thunderous sound waves are traveling across the Arthur Kill and reverberating over the residential areas of western Staten Island.
“People’s quality of life has been smashed,” McMahon said.
The D.A. said the boom parties are being held in the industrial areas of Elizabeth. People gather to see whose car system is the most powerful, with each competitor taking turns blasting the cacophony towards New York.
“It’s almost like a contest—who can play their music the loudest,” McMahon said.
Staten Island authorities have received “numerous complaints,” with some residents saying they can’t sleep or even concentrate anymore because the noise is so relentless.
One local took to Twitter to say she’s been waking up at 3 or 4 a.m. and “thought I was losing my mind” before realizing her neighbors were “experiencing the exact same thing.”
“Night after night, a constant, loud vibration,” she wrote.
McMahon said Staten Island had boom parties of its own in the past that were audible from Bay Ridge. Then the local precinct commander “put an end to it.”
McMahon wants Elizabeth to do the same for its neighbors in New York. “We’re hoping to get the political will behind it so that the community there says, ‘Hey, these people are violating New Jersey law.’”
McMahon said local and state police have the ability to seize equipment and vehicles, calling it an “intolerable situation” that is a kind of “interstate noise warfare.”
“It’s unfair to the people of Staten Island,” he said. “People can’t get on with their lives.”
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