Butler Quick Check Proposal to be Continued

The Butler Planning Board continued its hearing on the and on Route 23 North from Bartholdi Avenue to Boonton Avenue at its meeting Thursday evening. The plan, which has been a , was pushed back to the board's next meeting on May 17 as testimony from Butler resident Janice Harper-Young ran long.

"I believe this will take up all of May," Board Attorney John Barbarula, who, along with the board, has now heard condemning testimony from each of the five families whose houses border the site, said. "I will then request an appropriate opportunity to prepare some guidelines for the board in which they can deliberate after that. Hopefully we can get this done at the next meeting."

Harper-Young's qualm with a Quick Chek next to her home is that she said it will negatively affect her son Ryan, 20, who is multiply-disabled on top of "a lot" of other medical issues.

"My biggest fear is, because of it being a 24-hour facility, his interrupted sleep would aggravate his seizure disorder," she said. "I have, on multiple occasions, when he's had interrupted sleep patterns, (seen him have a seizure). I know from my experience, no I'm not a doctor but I am his full-time care taker, that this will be very harmful to him to have to deal with different sleep patterns."

Harper-Young, aided by her disability lawyer George Holland, added that some of Quick Chek's other amenities would also be harmful to her son. First, the 20-foot, at the least, wall that would need to be erected would wind up blocking most, if not all, of the sunlight from the property. "He doesn't have the ability to ride a bike or hop in a car and ride down to the beach or hang out with his friends and enjoy a day in the sun. Basically, his sitting in his room in the sun and being out on the swing, other than me taking him to a park, is the only time he gets any sun," Harper-Young said.

"From everything I have seen and heard at the meetings, I believe that at the high-end of my property, that it was going to start at 20 feet," she added after the meeting. "I thought it was going to go to 36 feet because there is going to be a 16-foot retainer wall with a 20-foot fence on top of it. They seem to say that I'm wrong but at any rate it has to be at least 20 feet, which is still going to block out any bit of sunlight coming from that direction. Whether it be 20 or 30 it's still going to be life-changing for us."

Another bone of contention is that the smells emitting from the idling trucks and other gas station odors would be too much for Ryan to deal with. With traffic going in and out of the site Harper-Young fears a "lingering of fumes."

If the application is passed, Harper-Young said she would not hesitate to move, despite the aggravation that would ensue.

"I'm probably going to have to put my house on the market," she said. "The fear of his seizures is so great. I'll suffer a great financial loss, I probably will never get back into another house so I will then have to find an apartment that is handicap accessible."

"I will do what I have to do to protect him."

At the conclusion of her testimony, the devoted mother gave an emotional speech to the board pleading to give a quick check to Quick Chek.

"I would like (the board) to understand that this application, the variances that they need and the magnitude of the wall is so great that it will impact my house and our quality of life," she said. "Not even the quality of life that upsets me but I truly fear for his safety. I am begging you all to please understand the severity of this situation and protect him from this. Please uphold the ordinances and don't allow this to go through. It's not right. I fear this application greatly, I have been sick to my stomach for more than a year over this application."