In an emergency virtual meeting on May 1, called in response to Gardiner residents’ alarm over the reopening of Yogi Bear’s Jellystone Park™ Camp-Resort at Lazy River, the town board narrowly passed two motions intended to shut the campground down until all state campgrounds are reopened later this month. However, procedural delays built into the law meant that visitors arriving for opening weekend at Lazy River were not expected to be forced to vacate before the middle of the following week at the earliest.
Both motions were proposed by councilwoman Laura Walls. The first called upon Gardiner code enforcement officer Andy Lewis to serve a notice of violation and cease-and-desist order upon the campground operators as soon as possible, informing them that they were not in compliance with the town code because they were operating without a license. Lewis explained that, by law, the violation had to remedied within five days of service/ “Then an appearance ticket can be written,” said Lewis. “The town justice has the ability to enforce the penalty.”
At Lewis’ suggestion, the board also authorized the supervisor to issue an executive order forbidding commercial campgrounds in the town to take in guests until such time as all campgrounds in New York State, including those in state parks, are reopened – currently scheduled to occur on May 31.
“The issue at hand isn’t about licensing; it’s about public safety,” Lewis said. Having such an executive order in place would enable law-enforcement officers to intervene if the campground operators refused to comply with the shutdown order.
The board was sharply divided on the two measures. Majestic and councilman Warren Wiegand objected to what might be perceived as selectivity of the decision to enforce the licensing requirement, raising the specter of a future lawsuit.
Lazy River is the only commercial campground currently operating within the town, and previous town boards have neglected to enforce the licensing provision for many years.
A code chapter forbidding unlicensed trailer parks was revised in February to substitute the word “campground” for “travel trailer park or tourist camp,” as part of the culmination of the board’s long campaign to update language in the code that hadn’t anticipated modern tourism modes such as AirBnBs, glamping and couch-surfing.
Majestic expressed reluctance to begin enforcing the newest version of the law, particularly since 90 days have not yet elapsed since its adoption: the time period within which campground operators must apply for and obtain a license. Wiegand called it “capricious” and “inappropriate at best and cavalier at worst” to do so now, considering that “the old law was never enforced for almost 20 years.” Both voted against the cease-and-desist measure.
But Walls argued, “They’re illegally operating. They don’t have protections under the law at this point.” And councilman Franco Carucci made the case that it was justified to target Lazy River because the business has historically “not been a good corporate citizen …. They know they can lawyer up and bully us around.” He said that campground operators had not been returning his phone calls.
Councilman David Dukler also urged action, saying, “Just because we haven’t used [the license law] doesn’t mean we can’t. We have exigent circumstances that justify it. I don’t think it’s an egregious exercise of power.”
Majestic said that she’d had a “short and sweet” phone call that morning with a Lazy River official, informing him that there had been an outcry from Gardiner residents against reopening the campground for business at this time. She also reported that she had been seeking an executive order from county executive Pat Ryan against the reopening. Ryan’s efforts had been stymied by governor Andrew Cuomo’s decision last week to lift some restrictions on upstate counties.
Majestic added that she had also asked the state police and county sheriff to monitor enforcement of social-distancing protocols at the campground. However, Majestic declined to issue an executive order for a campground shutdown as a public-health measure until explicitly instructed to do so by the rest of the board.
Walls abstained from that vote, arguing that Majestic already the authority to take action on the local level. “I trust you to be as forceful and deliberate as necessary,” she told the supervisor.
By the time the meeting ended late Friday afternoon, Gardiner residents were already noting on social media the arrival of recreational vehicles at the campground, and some were urging that the site be picketed. How long these out-of-town visitors will be able to remain at Lazy River remains to be seen. Hopes were expressed that it would be vacated by the second weekend in May.
Update, May 4:
In a follow-up emergency virtual meeting on Monday, May 4, the Gardiner Town Board voted unanimously to authorize issuance of a Notice of Violation letter to Yogi Bear’s Jellystone Park™ Camp-Resort at Lazy River as drafted by code enforcement officer Andy Lewis and revised following review by town attorney Allyson Phillips of Young/Sommer, LLC. After councilwoman Laura Walls pointed out that Section 210 of the Town Code allows the town up to 150 days to consider an application for a campground license, the board also agreed to authorize the code enforcement officer to use his discretion to allow a campground operator to operate provisionally while the license application is still under review, if he deems the applicant to be in compliance with pertinent Town Code regulations.
Noting that her executive order declaring a State of Emergency had just been reviewed by the attorney, town supervisor Marybeth Majestic stated that she would submit it to the New York State Department of Health “right away” following Monday’s meeting. She explained that before taking effect, any such measure must be reviewed by the DOH and other state agencies to ensure that it is not in conflict with any other executive orders issued by Governor Cuomo pertaining to the COVID-19 emergency. Majestic projected that she would be informed whether or not it had been approved “by the end of the week,” making it feasible that the campground could be shut down as a public health hazard as early as this weekend.
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