Last week when it snowed, we encouraged our readers to go sledding. Our sledding video is from Rye Golf Club which has a terrific, sloping hill perfect for kids and adults who want to go sledding.
That is until Rye Golf Club was warned by Rye City corporation counsel about the liabilities of Rye citizens using city property to sled. Apparently the club has been telling sledders to beat it.
Thanks to Rye Councilman Joe Sack for raising the flag on this one at last week's council meeting because apparently sledding is now banned at Rye Golf Club. Sack has asked for an explantion from counsel at the next meeting. "(Sledding) is a tradition that has been going on years and years in Rye," said Sack.
So kids are getting hit by cars in our streets and now we expend energy banning them from sledding?
Really? After sledding what next? What about golfers swinging those menacing metal clubs? Someone call the city attorney…
What do you think of Rye Golf Club's ban on sledding? Leave a comment below.
Hate to say it, but think about it. Some kid goes down the hill and hits a tree, hits another kid, etc and dies, you don’t think that the city is going to be dragged into a lawsuit?
I’m not saying its right, but even if some kid gets hurt bad by hitting a hole, or something sticking out of the ground, you know the lawsuits are gonna start.
Welcome to “it’s not my kids fault” world…
What’s Next???
“Hey Kids….You can’t walk on the City owned sidewalks that are badly in need of repairs because if you fall and get hurt your family might sue”!!!
When swimmers go to the beach and swim with no Life Guard on duty or at a pool with no Life Guard on duty they are greeted with a sign that says: “SWIM AT YOUR OWN RISK”!
We are talking about sledding that occurs very seldom!
I don’t see the private courses acting like this!!!
Who knows, maybe now they will jump on board and the kids will have to get on a plane and fly somewhere where it is “legal” to have fun!!
Put up the right sign and leave the kids alone!!!
I second you Jimmy.
I remember getting hurt sledding at Rye Golf. One time I hit a bolder then ended up in the creek. I was able to limp home shivering, felt lucky and was back on the hill the following week. Others I knew broke arms and dislocated shoulders over the years we sledded there. Everyone went back to the hill when healed. Nobody from my group would trade those childhood experiences for the world.
Put up tough signs reflecting the legal liability of the parents of the children. They bear the burden – as do the participating minors – of assuming the risks including outright death.
As usual JA spits before he thinks-
private club have adapted the
restrictions. eg Westchester CC-see sign on Park Drive.
You can thank lawyers and insurance companies for squashing another tradition.
Sure, it’s regrettable– but nothing’s squashed.
This shouldn’t surprise anyone. We’ve become a shamefully litigious society. Coincidentally, what I recall to be one of the very first tremors of this phenomenon was the removal of the high dive at RGC many years ago. That was utter nonsense– and things have only gotten worse.
Regarding the new “don’t do anything fun!” signs at RGC, they at best have to be viewed as pathetic CYA. The spectre of liability presumably shrinks a bit once an individual has been warned.
I’d suggest that folks consider this to be the same kind of thing as when the Rye High athletic director– Castagna (who’s just basically Shine’s flunky, but don’t get me started)– publishes his “don’t jump into the brook” memo before each home Harrison game.
Even a guy like him– a dutiful, fretful person who’s all about rules– knows that such an edict will be, and should be, totally blown off. But if somebody turns an ankle or whatever when celebrating in the brook– at least he can show the administration his memo. Whatever.
It’s just CYA. You won’t see anything resembling enforcement (unless some Allendale or Soundview residents get grumpy and start yelping to the RPD).
Blow right by the signs, and sled on! Maybe today, even.
G.G.
As usual I spit before I think? LOL!
Never noticed the sign, so shoot me!
Betty,
I’m with you, SLED AWAY!!!
What is the worst that can happen, the RPD locks up a 10yr.old for sledding/trespassing?
I wonder which cop will have it in him/her to be that officer???
Won’t that look inviting in the LOCAL PAPERS!!!
Now I see why no one uses their real names on this site.
The guy puts his opinion on here and he is insulted by two faceless cowards!
U need to get out from under that rock if you think no one is listening to Mr.Amico.
Jim, you are so correct about JA. Maybe the day will come when he realizes what a complete jackass he is, or maybe not?
If a kid got hurt sliding down the hill at Rye Golf, Amico would be all up in arms that there should of been a sign there and it would of prevented this atrocity! Somehow, it would of been Steve Otis’s fault!
Chris Henn,Jim,G.G.,
what a crew of buffoons!!!
I would love to see how one of you would handle what that man has been thru!!! By the looks of it, I doubt you would last a day!
It takes a real POS to attack someone who has buried a child!!!
WINTERTIME STREET SLEDDING
Anyone out there remember when the Rye DPW partnered with Rye Recreation to close about ten to twelve City residential streets in various Rye neighborhoods for sledding, skiing and other recreational purposes by placing saw horses with hanging oil lamps at both ends of a given street?
All traffic was prohibited except that of the local street residents. When neighbors needed access, the sledders would temporarily move the barricade replacing it after the car passsed into its home street and driveway. DPW plow blades were raised a half-foot to provide the best sledding surface, and “for the greater good” the neighbors didn’t complain that their streets weren’t totally cleared of snow down to the blacktop. In exchange, the sledding children and their parents would often shovel the driveways and front walks of the residents with a sledding course on their street.
Street lights illuminated the hills and many a weary Rye youth spend ten or more hours on “snow days” sledding from morning well into the night punctuated only by lunch and dinner breaks at home or with sledding friends and hot chocolates served by their “host” street neighbors. Such activities and neighborliness helped make Rye a “community” providing children and their families with positive outlets and special opportunities to participate in healthful and genuine activities (and not video games). There was nothing wrong then, and there is nothing wrong now, with the City enabling solid, clean, healthful and fun activities from a kinder/gentler and less litigous time.
Regarding the present sledding dilemma at Rye Golf Club, the City should take all appropriate precautions to protect itself, and by extension its citizens, from lawsuits while still enabling winter/snow-related activities to occur on the great hills of the golf course. Certainly an acceptable “middle ground” exists short of an outright ban on these activities.
Where were these sledding streets you might ask?
I’ll start the list with the Reymont Avenue hill (from Moorehead Drive to Parkway Drive) in Rye Gardens.
You readers provide the rest.
Steve Feeney
Old Garnet,
Palisade Rd., Grapal and Richard Pl. were closed as well as the Midland end of Palisade.
Also the hill on Sylvan Rd. that comes down from Davis, Cedar Pl. and the entrance to Sylvan from Midland were blocked off!
We also use to Sled down Elizabeth St. but they didn’t close off Purchase so you really were on your own as for not ending up under a car coming down Purchase!
And I agree with your assessment that a happy medium can be reached rather than take “another” tradition away from Rye!
SLED ON!!!