News
NCPD

‘It’s a Major Concern’: Police Eye Marijuana-Related ‘Drugged Driving’

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New Canaan Police saw a 42 percent increase year-over-year in narcotics arrests in town from 2014 to 2015, officials say, driven mostly by marijuana-related incidents. While the year-over-year rise, from 52 to 74, does include some cocaine- and heroin-related incidents, it’s mostly tickets issued for possessing a small amount of marijuana—an offense that state laws effectively decriminalized by reducing it from a misdemeanor to an infraction, according to New Canaan Police Chief Leon Krolikowski. The proliferation of pot is reflected not only in the department’s wide-ranging effort to reduce the availability of substances available to New Canaan youth, but also to a second NCPD goal for 2016: Reduce ‘drugged’ and drunken driving incidents. “It’s a problem for us that we are seeing it [marijuana] a lot more than before in people driving around in vehicles, it’s a major concern,” Krolikowski told NewCanaanite.com. Yet, except in extreme cases—or, say, in cases of people driving while drunk, where standard field sobriety tests or breathalyzers may be used to develop probable cause for an arrest—it isn’t always clear, in a traffic stop where marijuana is involved, when a driver is “under the influence.”

“The state has not figured out how to prosecute it yet, they’re working on that,” the chief said.

Government

Town Pursues State Grant To Fund Elm-To-Irwin Sidewalk on Weed Street

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Town officials say they plan to apply for a state grant that would fund the creation of a new sidewalk that would connect the top of Elm Street to Irwin Park. The Board of Finance at its regular meeting Tuesday night will hear a request from town officials to apply for a $150,000 Responsible Growth and Transit-Oriented Development grant for the long-discussed project. First Selectman Rob Mallozzi noted that the sidewalk is in line with New Canaan’s Plan of Conservation and Development, in that it would help create a pedestrian-friendly connection between the business district and a town park. The sidewalk would run along the west side of Weed Street and, according to preliminary engineering plans (see PDF below), could involve removing one row of maple trees and a tree stump, and relocating a set of mailboxes at Woods End Road. The sidewalk wouldn’t run up against the roadway but would have a “grass shelf” between it and Weed Street, officials have said.

Business

Town Body Seeks Meeting With Landscaper Who Violated Environmental Regulations

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Members of the volunteer group responsible for enforcing regulations that govern some of New Canaan’s most sensitive environmental habitats are seeking a meeting with an area landscaper who cleared a large wetlands area on Old Stamford Road. If Mount Kisco, N.Y.-based landscaper Mike Nolan “had disappeared from the face of New Canaan, that would be one thing,” Inland Wetlands Commission Secretary Angela James said during the group’s most recent regular meeting. “But my fear is that he is still operating in New Canaan and could quite easily do something similar on another property,” she said at the Dec. 21 meeting, held in the Town Meeting Room. Specifically, Nolan appears to have violated New Canaan’s Inland Wetlands and Watercourses Regulations at 279 Old Stamford Road —as well as a conservation easement for the property, which noted “no disturbance, no maintenance, no planting” there—in clearing out vegetation from a large area.

News

Park Street Colonial Sells for $727,500

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The following property transfers were recorded last week in the Town Clerk’s office. For more information about each property from the Assessor, click on the street address. To get the history of a New Canaan street name, click here. ***

Jan. 4

218 Park St.

car accident Silvermine Road

Police Arrest New Canaan Woman for Driving Under the Influence At Saxe Middle School Pick-Up

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Police on Thursday afternoon charged a 52-year-old New Canaan woman with driving under the influence at Saxe Middle School, where she had gone to pick up her child. The woman, of Harrison Avenue, is the same woman named in a civil lawsuit in connection with the horrific October 2014 car accident on Silvermine Road that caused a young man from Stamford life-threatening injuries. That lawsuit accuses her of driving under the influence—a charge that the state’s attorney did not bring in the case, though local police had determined that she was intoxicated at the time of the crash. Police last March charged her with misdemeanor reckless driving for that accident. At about 1:48 p.m. on Jan.