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

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.