HOLMES BEACH – Issues between two neighbors in an attached duplex caught the attention of police when one accused the other of violating the city’s noise ordinance. The neighbor on the receiving end of a noise violation warning was Commissioner Kim Rash.
The incident took place in the early morning hours of May 1 and lasted for nearly two hours. When Rash left town in the days following the April 27 city commission meeting, he left a stereo playing in his side of the Holmes Boulevard duplex to make people think that he and his family were home instead of out of town. His neighbor, Anastasios Tricas who owns the other side of the multi-story duplex, called police to report a noise violation just after 6 a.m. on May 1 due to noise from the stereo.
In the report compiled by Holmes Beach police officers, Tricas said he had dealt with the noise from the stereo for a couple of days before calling police and that the bass was vibrating the walls of his unit, making it difficult for him and his wife to sleep.
Though officers on the scene said the music from the stereo didn’t violate the city’s noise ordinance, a decibel reading taken in the shared stairwell of the duplex came in at 45db according to the police report and officers did determine that the vibration in the walls due to the bass from the stereo. The continuous nature of the noise and volume, among other issues, was a violation of the city’s noise ordinance, the officers said.
A warning was posted at Rash’s door and, after officers determined that no one was home, they called the commissioner to advise him of the situation and see what could be done to turn the stereo off.
Rash immediately complied with officers and called a friend to come over to remedy the situation in his absence. Chief Bill Tokajer said that while Rash did comply, it took some time to get someone to the house to turn the stereo off.
While waiting for someone to come to turn off the stereo, Tricas wrote out a five-page statement giving a list of accusations against his neighbor, even stating that the strained relationship with Rash is one of the reasons his side of the duplex is currently for sale.
One of the more serious complaints in Tricas’s statement accuses Rash of using his position as a city commissioner to overstep and scare Tricas off of calling the city to complain about issues.
Rash declined to comment on the accusations made by his neighbor.
Rash is one of the city commissioners who has fought publicly for stricter enforcement of the city’s noise ordinance, particularly the use of a list of seven standards to determine if noise is an issue rather than a noise meter reading. It was only in the past few months that commissioners agreed to adjust enforcement of the noise ordinance to take the seven standards into higher regard than a decibel reading from the noise meter over the city’s decibel maximum, 50db for quiet hours when this incident occurred.
The noise complaint and associated accusations weren’t the only issues brought to the city between the two neighbors.
Tricas also contacted the city’s code compliance department on April 30 to report trash on Rash’s side of a shared patio. When reporting his complaint, he said he had a showing of his duplex unit that afternoon and that bottles, trash and chairs were strewn about on the patio. In his complaint to police, he said the trash and tipped-over chairs were the result of a loud gathering the Rash family had on April 29-30. Though Rash had a friend quickly come and clean up the mess before code officers were able to respond to the home, where the trash came from is still a mystery as the Rash family members were all out of town at the time with no one staying at the home, according to the police report from the May 1 incident.
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