Sheepshead Bay Assemblyman Steven Cymbrowitz said this week he may adjust his proposed legislation to ban party boats from the Emmons Avenue docks if everybody involved in the business got serious about controlling the rowdy behavior of party patrons before and after the nighttime excursions.
“The reason I put this legislation in is that what we need to do is get the party boat promoters, captains and the community together to discuss how to make it better,” explained Cymbrowitz. “The local (61st precinct) police are upset because they have to take patrols off different neighborhoods to come here to keep the peace before boats leave and when they dock at one of two in the morning.”
Under the proposed measure party boats at least 14 feet long would be banned while fishing boats, an historic and still active staple of Sheepshead Bay, are exempt from the bill.
Under the bill, party boats would be allowed no closer than 750 feet of the shore or 100 feet of the Sheepshead Bay dock. The legislation also limits the volume of music or any other sounds emanating from the boats except for emergency horns or sirens.
The lawmaker said he’s been listening to complaints about the party boats since he took office 14 years ago. Last summer the issue came up at a campaign debate in Manhattan Beach and he said residents seemed pleased that he wanted to address the problem through legislative channels.
Cymbrowitz said the police and the Parks Department, which controls the docks, wanted him to push this law.
According to TheBrooklynDaily, a Sheepshead Bay fishing boat captain — whose vessel would be exempt from the law — suggested a legislative ban shouldn’t be in order, but instead increased security to control rowdy partygoers might be the solution.
“He’s doing it wrong, they should just have more security,” Dave Pares, who has been in the fishing business for 54 years, told the media outlet. “They should just guide the people off the boats — ‘Get in your cars.’ ”
But Cymbrowitz insisted that unless the party boat captains and promoters come to the table he’s moving ahead on the bill.
“Everyone deserves a decent quality of life and the party boats have been depriving people of that basic right,” he said.
