Government

Business Owner Asks for ‘Consideration’ from Parking Enforcement, Not Tickets

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A longtime Main Street business owner is asking town officials for some leniency when it comes to commercial vehicles that remain parked on the street for more than two hours. Anthony Ceraso told members of the Parking Commission at their most recent meeting that he’s not disputing the two $25 tickets he received in June for overtime parking out front of his business on the corner of East Maple Street. “They’re already paid, I’m here to vent,” Ceraso told the Commission at its Sept. 4 meeting at Town Hall. Ceraso, owner of AC Auto Body, said he’s been in business in New Canaan for 22 years and located at 182 Main St.

Business

‘This Is Ridiculous’: Town Officials Urge Auto Shop Owner To Be Reasonable in Parking Vehicles Along Main Street

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Members of the volunteer group that oversees on-street parking in New Canaan are urging the owner of a downtown business to work with them or risk exacerbating an emotionally charged dispute and potentially dangerous situation. The Police Commission already has spent more time on traffic and safety concerns near AC Auto Body than it has on hiring issues, according to commissioner Paul Foley. “This is ridiculous and it is still not solved,” Foley said at the start of the commission’s regular meeting, held Wednesday in the training room at the New Canaan Police Department. “It would be resolved if this individual would perform in a neighborhood way.”

Turning to members of NCPD that are working with both AC Auto Body owner Anthony Ceraso and neighbors who say the way he parks customers and shop vehicles blocks sight lines, Foley added: “You want to convey that to [Ceraso]? That we are concerned again about this action that he continues to do and if there isn’t any cleanup, especially now that snow coming and all the other stuff, that we will go to [Planning & Zoning].

Government

With an Eye on Safety, Town To Re-Stripe and Otherwise Improve East Maple-Main Intersection

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Seeking to reduce motorists’ speeds and improve sight lines near an intersection that’s at the center of a longstanding dispute between neighbors, officials plan to re-stripe and otherwise improve parts of East Maple and Main Streets. Plans call for the removal of two parking spaces—one up to the northwestern corner of East Maple, the other around the corner on Main (in front of Coldwell Banker)—as well as the westward shifting of the centerline on Main Street as northbound traffic approaches the intersection and shifting forward both the stop bar and crosswalk at the top of East Maple, traffic officials said. Tiger Mann, ascending assistant director of the Department of Public Works, told members of the Police Commission at their most recent meeting that he has “a request for Safety Markings to come out and take care of that work.”

“Once we put that striping in, we will move over the centerline,” he said at the meeting, held Nov. 16 in the training room at the New Canaan Police Department. “That’s all we have left—to come and lay it out as to what’s going to happen, and then give the go-ahead and do the work.”

The improvements represent an initial attempt to create a safer intersection for motorists seeking to exit Maple and East Maple onto Main and for pedestrians seeking to cross those streets.

Government

‘That Is My Property’: Business Owner Pushes Back On East Maple Street Traffic Study’s Recommendations

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The business owner involved in an ongoing dispute with residential neighbors on East Maple Street on Wednesday night pushed back on a traffic consultant’s suggestion to change the way he uses his own parking lot in order to improve traffic and safety. Instead of asking him to alter a stone wall (if not remove it) at AC Auto Body and no longer park cars in the northwest corner of the lot, the sight line problem at the corner of Main Street would go away if traffic on East Maple Street is made one-way toward Hoyt Street, according to the business’s owner, Anthony Ceraso. The wall “is on my property that we did have the approval to have erected when we did renovation, as well as the fence,” Ceraso told members of the Police Commission at their regular meeting, held in the training room in the New Canaan Police Department. “So my concern is and my original observation was the easiest way to rectify this was a one-way street. We don’t have to put up any stop signs, any traffic lights, we don’t have to worry about monitoring traffic going in or out of there with the police department giving tickets or warnings, because now it [would be] changed to a one-way street.

Government

Tensions Escalate Between Auto Body Shop, Neighbors In Parking Clash on East Maple Street

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Fueled by an already tense parking situation, bad feelings between an auto body shop downtown and its neighbors on East Maple Street were ratcheted up Wednesday morning after the business’s owner deliberately parked a company car in front of the home of the residents’ spokesman. While AC Auto Body owner Anthony Ceraso said he purposely parked there for a legal two-hour period because David Shea had made a rude gesture the day before, Shea called the move is a bullying tactic and further evidence that the business should not be granted a special privilege of all-day parking in a designated area on East Maple. The ongoing dispute boiled over Tuesday when, according to Shea, Ceraso “parked four trucks up and down the street in front of residences,” prompting neighbors to snap photos and send them to on-street parking authorities “saying this is egregious and this is ridiculous, considering everything we have been through, for him to put this back in our face.”

Ceraso recounted a different version. AC Auto Body parks its trucks in an area along East Maple Street that the Police Commission had carved out because the company serves as New Canaan’s designated on-call wrecking service in emergencies. Following a two-car accident Tuesday morning at Bank and Park Streets, Ceraso said, he had two flatbed trucks return to AC Auto Body “and if you know my parking lot, you know what car capacity we have, so we moved them out on East Maple Street, not on Main Street, so that we could move cars around in our lot and drop the cars in flatbeds onto the lot.”

“We were in the trucks, we did not leave them there [on East Maple] and leaving them there for the day, that is not what we do or have ever done.