Boch Ice a Slapshot at ZBA

No, no, no.

Dedham cannot simply call and the ice hockey building owner on East Street and get the two sides work it all out.

Of course that would be the usual course of events. Both sides voice objections and both sides reach an agreement.

But the hockey entrepreneur had a different approach. owner Paul Cokinos .

He never checked with the town officials. So he did not know he had zoning laws that had to be addressed.

Now that the rink is up and running, Cokinos has major headaches.

Dedham is angered. . Kids thought it was a nice place, but they find a man who set up the rink and never bothered to check the rule book on what needed to be done.

Ignorance of the law has never been a defense.

If the owner gets away with a slap on the wrist, a terrible precedent will happen. This case, which is now widely publicized, will be watched carefully. Everyone will take note of how the town handles it.

Business people will know that all they have do in the future is to fake ignorance of town laws, build whatever they like, then defend themselves with their own ignorance. Neighbors will be defenseless; anything can be built. Kids will see how the game of business is played in real life, through deception. And the town will be unable to do anything to stop the process.

Right now, however, Dedham can take a stand.

Specifically, the Dedham Zoning Board of Appeals can call the owner on the carpet and dress him down for using this ignorance of Dedham zoning law.

ZBA officials also can issue a stern warning about people who try to hide behind their own ignorance.

Maybe the best defense against the ‘I-didn’t-know’ excuse is a new law that all new building permits must have a space where petitioners have to state they may need variances from normal zoning laws.

Whatever the ZBA finally does with this case, it must give it special attention because it will look foolish if it tries to let the case die quietly.

Neighbors could take the issue to court. The petitioner could go to court, too. 

Lots of ZBA arguments end in court anyway. By its very nature, the ZBA is a body to settle relatively easy zoning cases at the local level. Only when local ZBA members cannot work out the case is the court called in.

In its original form, the ZBA had the duty to decide ‘use variances’ where people could petition to have their single home land change into multi-family land or a business use; some of those were monumental battles.

Today’s arguments are over lot lines and heights of buildings or whether a new porch encroaches a few feet too far into the back yard. Relatively simple matters, most of the adjustments are easy to reach.

Everybody knows where they stand when the ZBA makes its decision.

Here, with the hockey case, ZBA members must let the people who live in Dedham have a clear understanding where they stand.

Should they fail, Dedham belongs to the intelligently ignorant.