Shannon Mullen

@MullenAPP

Since changing over to having a majority of Orthodox Jewish homeowners, a Lakewood adult community has restricted mixed-gender swimming times to two hours per day, Sunday through Friday.

Jewish law prohibits men and women from bathing together.

Appeals by non-Jewish residents for a more accommodating schedule have been rebuffed by the condominium community's board of directors.

LAKEWOOD - A dip with his wife in their condominium association’s outdoor pool has landed Steve Lusardi in hot water.

The 69-year-old retired postman, a resident of A Country Place, incurred a $50 fine earlier this summer for violating the 376-unit adult community’s restrictions on mixed-gender swimming.

In deference to the modesty norms of religiously conservative Orthodox Jewish residents, who now constitute the majority of homeowners at A Country Place, the community’s elected board of directors has curtailed the times when men and women can use the pool together. Jewish law prohibits men and women from bathing together.

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The pool is open for 13 hours a day during the summer months, from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. But the new rules say Steve Lusardi may only swim with his wife, Diane, 70, from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., Sunday through Friday. There is open swimming on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, when swimming is proscribed by Jewish law.

Those rules have sparked a heated controversy between the board and a handful of outspoken non-Orthodox residents, including Lusardi, who say their appeals for a more accommodating schedule have fallen on deaf ears.

“I’ve been told, ‘This is a Jewish community. Get used to it,’” Lusardi said.

Members of the board of directors declined comment. “I’m not interested in talking to you. Thank you very much,” Fayge Engelman, the treasurer, told a reporter.

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Meanwhile, Lusardi and other critics of the schedule have received support from some of the community’s Orthodox residents.

Jerry Fried, 65, who is Orthodox Jewish, asked the board at its last meeting to consider providing a few more hours per week for mixed-gender swimming, but the board declined.

Fried said the dispute is between residents and the board, not between Jewish and non-Jewish neighbors.

“On both sides there are oddballs,” he said. “The main thing I want to stress is I don’t want (anyone to think) there’s a war going on between the Jewish people and the non-Jewish people. That’s absolutely not true.”

IS IT LEGAL?

The legality of the segregated swim hours remains an open question.

The Fair Housing Act, a federal anti-discrimination law, which is applicable to condominium and homeowner associations, prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, familial status or national origin. The law covers access to housing as well as “the provision of services or facilities” connected to that housing, according to the act.

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Since the law went into effect in 1968, courts have ruled in several cases that specific policies adopted by age-restricted communities barring or limiting children’s access to pools were discriminatory. It’s not clear if there have been any cases involving gender-segregated pool hours. New Jersey's Law Against Discrimination, which is more sweeping than the federal law, also bars housing discrimination based on sex and gender.

A similar controversy — sparked by an anonymous complaint — arose earlier this summer over gender-segregated swim times at city-owned pools in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, a major Orthodox enclave. Amid concern that the restrictions might violate gender-discrimination laws, the city agreed to reduce the pool's segregated hours and the city's Human Rights Commission signed off on the accommodation.

Marie Curto, who like Steve Lusardi was slapped with a $50 fine after she refused to leave the pool area during a men-only swim time, said she recently spoke with an attorney who told her the rules were permissible as long as residents weren’t denied access to the pool altogether.

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Legal or not, she thinks the rules at A Country Place are insensitive to non-Jewish residents, particularly those who work during the week. From Sunday through Friday, only men can swim from 6:45 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Of the 91 hours the pool is open each week, 66 hours, or 73 percent of the total, are restricted to single-gender swimming.

Homeowners pay a monthly maintenance fee of $215, which includes the cost of the pool’s upkeep.

Curto, 60, said since the new schedule took effect, her grown son has stopped making the trip from Union for an after-work swim, since they can no longer swim together in the evenings, except on Saturday.

“This is totally unfair,” she said.

AN UNHAPPY RETURN

The new pool schedule, and the reception they’ve received from the board, has made the Lusardis question their decision to return to A Country Place.

The couple lived here for more than eight years before selling their home on Posy Drive in 2010. “A guy made me an offer I couldn’t refuse,” Steve Lusardi explained.

By that time, the makeup of the community was in the process of changing, due to an influx of new homeowners from the Orthodox Jewish community.

The transition was a rocky one at times. In 2008, a residence in the complex was the subject of a Superior Court decision that forced a homeowner to remove changes to a unit converted into an ad hoc synagogue. In 2011, police were dispatched to quell a disturbance at the clubhouse when a heated argument erupted at a residents meeting over plans to use the clubhouse for a Yom Kippur service.

Lusardi believes it's possible that lingering hard feelings over those past disputes may be a factor in the board's handling of the pool issue.

Lusardi said he got along well with his Jewish neighbors, so much so that when his wife suffered a pair of strokes in 2013, the couple jumped at the chance to buy another home at A Country Place.

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A one-story ranch would make it easier for his wife to get around, he said, and the community’s new heated pool would be a perfect way for her to get the daily physical therapy she needed.

They were happy with the arrangement at first, but the new pool hours have soured their attitude. Some days, including during the recent heat wave, it’s too hot at the pool in the middle of the day, Lusardi said. On Monday at 2 p.m., with the temperature in the mid-90s, only a handful of people were using the pool.

A month ago, on a warm Sunday afternoon, Lusardi refused to leave the pool area when the allotted time from him to swim with his wife expired.

“I was just staying there for spite,” Lusardi admitted.

A verbal confrontation ensued, Lusardi said.Lusardi said he eventually left the pool about 90 minutes after the open swim time expired. A notice of the $50 fine arrived a day or two later.

Like Curto, he has no intention of paying it.

“I know the Jewish protocol — the men and women can’t swim together. I’m aware of that,” Lusardi said.

“I just don’t like following it.”

Shannon Mullen: 732-643-4278; smullen4@gannettnj.com