Video: Proposed Town Code Ammendment for Bamboo Receives Public Hearing Date

A public hearing regarding a proposed amendment to the town code regarding bamboo will take place at the June 23 town board night meeting at the Eugene A. Cannataro Smithtown Senior Citizen Center.

The proposed amendment states, “No owner, tenant or occupier of property anywhere within the Town of Smithtown shall cause, suffer or allow bamboo to be planted, maintained or otherwise permitted to exist within ten (10) feet of any property line, street, sidewalk or public right of way.”

Town Supervisor Patrick Vecchio said after the June 7 town board meeting that those with bamboo has six months to rectify it and that those with bamboo will not be grandfathered in.

How vocal Keith and Ann Marie Alletto of Oak Avenue in Smithtown were on this issue, according to Vecchio, led calls and letters to pour into his office stating similar problems, and that the amendment is necessary.

“I don’t think you should change an ordinance only because it a thousand people, you should change an ordinance to benefit anyone, even if it’s a singular person, that’s what the government exists for,” he said.

Jerry Rubin of Nesconset, who addressed the bamboo issue at the June 7 meeting, is also feeling the effects of a neighbor’s bamboo infiltrating his property.

“It’s happening now where the chutes are falling onto my property, the seeds are growing, and the bamboo is growing on my property,” Rubin said after the meeting. “I have to cut them but can’t get at the roots because they’re three feet under. I have to cut the bamboo low to the ground as possible and wait for it to grow again. The chutes have been falling into the pool, they clog the skimmers, they clog the heater, the heater shuts off.”