Plan B Forum

The seniors who sued their condo board for banning their nightly meetings won a partial victory in court recently. Pictured are Leroy Tepper, Ron Silver, Tom Raia and Charles Montemarano. Not pictured is Thomas Milazzo.

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- They can congregate and kibitz — but only for 90 minutes a day, twice a week.

That’s the essence of a state Supreme Court ruling, ending a two-year war of words and affirming the right of five seniors at a New Springville condominium to chitchat in their building lobby, while putting restrictions on them.

The fivesome — Leroy Tepper, Ronald Silver, Thomas Milazzo, Charles Montemaranno and Thomas Raia — sued the Elmwood Park Condominium II condo, its managing agent and president of the board of managers last year in state Supreme Court, St. George, after their nightly meetings were banned for violating condominium bylaws against loitering.

Some residents also complained the men let strangers into the building and sometimes made unwanted comments — charges the seniors denied.

The men, who had been at odds with the condo board since August 2008 and fined in some instances, later were given an unoccupied first-floor studio in March 2009 in which to meet. But they contended that arrangement proved unsatisfactory, and they took the matter to court.

Some of the men, who include World War II and Korean War veterans, said they had been meeting in the Windham Loop building’s lobby for almost 15 years. All the plaintiffs are condo owners.

“We’re happy with the judge’s decision,” Tepper, 82, said yesterday in a telephone interview in which he offered an olive branch to the condo board.

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