Sam Bridge to Jr. League's president and her husband: "Pound mulch".

Junior League's GREENWItch Debra McLaughlin gets stoked for her next assault on her neighbor

After a number of delays, Jr. League president Debra McLaughlin and hubby Michael's complaint against Sam Bridge Nursery has been scheduled for the P&Z's October 17th meeting.

The Mclaughlin's, who lived for years on Birch Lane, deliberately moved across the street, next door to the Bridge's nursery, and built a new house. Like Captain Renault, they were shocked, shocked!  to discover that there was noise coming from that operation during business hours, and have subsequently waged war against it, demanding that the town shut it down.

[T]he Bridges said they have moved recycling to the southern side of the property, planted more evergreens in the buffer zone, changed backup alarms on machinery, reworked their parking lot, stopped restocking via forklift on Saturdays, and made other changes to reduce noise. 

“I greatly appreciate these positive steps in balancing the needs of the business with the needs of the adjacent homeowners,” McLaughlin said in an email to neighbors, Sam Bridge III and town Planning Director Katie DeLuca. “These measures are good examples of the kinds of reasonable protections that conscientious businesses should implement when making a request for an expansion in a residential neighborhood.” 

A Bridge family Facebook post states they attempted to reach McLaughlin’s attorney to see if the proposed amendment would be suitable for him and his family, but received no response.

McLaughlin has asked that the measures the Bridge family has taken to decrease noise production be included either in the nursery’s special exemption or in the revised code, “because a future owner of the nursery property might not be as considerate of the adjacent property owners.” 

Sam Bridge III said he would not agree to the inclusion.

“We have always been respectful of our neighbors and will continue to be in the future,” he said in an email reply to McLaughlin’s email. “We have gone above and beyond to make Michael happy. In 61 years at this location Michael is the only one to have ever had a problem with how we operate our business.

“We do not support adding additional language to the code (or our special exception),” he wrote. “Language that is meant only to handicap ours and other commercial nursery operations just to appease a single person.”