Cherry Grove - Party Town?

Yesterday was just about as perfect of a day as you can get here in Cherry Grove. It was sunny and warm, not too windy, and the water has warmed up to about 70 degrees, still too cool for the Florida "snow birds," but nice enough for me to spend three long sessions body surfing in the afternoon. Later, our little family (me, Dan, and the pets Bradley the dog and Nikko the cat) enjoyed cocktails on our roof deck. It was a beautiful evening. I took these pictures of the Grove from the deck.

On the down side, we continued to get reports of the burglaries and other unpleasant incidents that have taken place recently on the island. It's summertime and the popularity of the Grove as a "party-hardy" adult resort brings with it a certain element that creates problems requiring the presence of law enforcement. On Monday, a police helicopter circled the community while police on foot searched for suspects in a burglary. Some residents feel as though in summer the Grove morphs into a party town where anything goes. We have only about 300 homes here, yet we have SEVEN bars! We seem to lack the resolve as a community to organize and take back our town from the wild bar/party set that controls it in summer. One example of how out of control this has been is the noise problem that has existed here for years. Loud music is clearly audible in much of the community well into the wee hours most summer nights. There has been a lot of talk about it year after year, but nothing much has been done to control the problem. Another resident assigns the blame for this state of affairs as follows::

I blame our local civic organizations who would rather address raising
money and pretend that everything is ok than confront real issues and make waves. Were these disturbing recent events even given lip service at last Sunday's CGCAI/CGPOA (community association) meeting? I haven't heard that they were. Probably too busy dishing out the "I'm okay, you're okay bullshit."

That's a pretty damning assessment, but it is well past time that the community stands up for itself. Over a year ago I sent an email to the president of the community association with the following suggestion (among others):

12. Organize a town watch in conjunction with the Suffolk County Police to help
address pressing community concerns such as noise pollution.

I have noticed that another community on the Island, Ocean Beach, has some sort of auxiliary town youth corps that appears to serve a function similar to a town watch. Why not try this approach in The Grove?

Jim