Fair Lawn launches noise hotline for Paterson noise complaints
The noise, often from car stereos, has been an issue for neighbors in Fair Lawn according to the town’s mayor, but the borough has no jurisdiction to enforce it since the noise originates in Paterson.
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Fair Lawn is rolling out a new hotline aimed at a long-running complaint from residents: loud music drifting across the river from Paterson.
The noise, often from car stereos, has been an issue for neighbors in Fair Lawn according to the town’s mayor, but the borough has no jurisdiction to enforce it since the noise originates in Paterson. Residents could already call Paterson police directly, but Fair Lawn officials say the new hotline will help them track the scope of the problem.
Calls to the new number are forwarded directly to Paterson, but routed through a Fair Lawn line.
“If it’s during certain times of the year, certain times of the day, certain parts of town. So what we decided was we wanted to be able to collect some data so we can get a better handle on how big of an issue this is,” Fair Lawn Mayor Cristina Cutrone said. “And so that’s why we created the phone number.”
Cutrone said the goal is to gather specific time and location data that Fair Lawn can eventually bring to Paterson to address the noise together.
But Paterson Mayor Andre Sayegh said his city wasn’t notified about the hotline before it launched.
“It was something I saw on social media, and that’s no way for anyone to find out anything, especially a neighboring town,” Sayegh said. “So as a courtesy, there should be a courtesy call made to me and my police department.”
Sayegh said he wants to see direct communication between the two municipalities before any new system is put in place, although they are open to working on the issue alongside any new data.
“First, the mayor should reach out to me, and their police department should reach out to our police department to see if there actually is an issue,” he said. “Because I’ve spoken to our officer in charge, we haven’t had any communication from Fair Lawn relative to this issue.”
Cutrone said the underlying noise complaints are nothing new between the two towns, even if the hotline itself is.
“He knows that the issue of the noise has been something that we’ve discussed between our towns over the years,” she said. “This hotline is brand new, and since it’s really for us to collect information, all it was doing was forwarding our residents directly to the number that Paterson provided to us.”
The hotline is active, and the number is 201-777-6144.
