ROOSEVELT — A judge ordered Yeshiva Me’on Hatorah to cease operating a food service facility at 28 Homestead Lane.
The Monmouth County Health Department ticketed the yeshiva in March for operating the facility without approval. The Millstone Township-Roosevelt Borough Municipal Court fined the yeshiva $50 plus court costs totaling $33 for the violation in May. The court also ordered the yeshiva to cease and desist the food service facility immediately or face fines of $1,000 per day, according to the judge’s notes provided by the court.
The residence at 28 Homestead Lane is one of the homes in the borough that the yeshiva uses to board students attending school at 18 Homestead Lane. The borough contends that the yeshiva is using the single family home as an illegal dormitory in a residential zone.
During an August 2009 Planning Board hearing on the issue, state Department of Community Affairs Division of Fire Safety official James Mudd testified that he inspected the home in October 2008 and saw a total of 18 school-age boys living there, when the certificate of occupancy states that no more than five borders can live in the home at one time.
Mudd also testified that 30-plus kids were eating there at one time in a kitchen with two stoves with eight burners each, a number of sinks and dining accommodations for between 30 and 40.
During that same hearing, a resident who lives between the synagogue and the dormitory testified to seeing deliveries of an institutional-size refrigerator and large quantities of food to the residence. Another resident, who lives across the street from the yeshiva and dorm, had testified that the dorm produced between six and seven large trashcans plus additional bags of refuse weekly. Borough ordinances have changed since then to regulate the number of trashcans produced by each residence per week to one.
The yeshiva has appealed the borough’s decision about its operating an illegal dorm at 28 Homestead Lane to New Jersey Superior Court.