A Hasbrouck Heights couple, whose sheltering of drug-troubled youngsters violated a zoning law limiting the number of overnight guests, have moved from the borough and withdrawn a court appeal of their conviction.
As a result, state Superior Court Judge Benedict Lucchi agreed Tuesday to drop the suspended, 30-day jail sentences and conditional $500 fine Billy and Susan McCoy received in July for having three, unrelated guests in a single-family home.
The penalties were to be enforced if the couple committed additional violations.
The McCoys (whose two teen-aged sons were enrolled in the controversial KIDS rehabilitation program) decided their family would do better elsewhere, their attorney said Tuesday.
Attorney Margaret Mary McVeigh said the McCoys, who also have a young daughter, "had the whole family to consider."
KIDS treats youngsters with drug, alcohol, eating, and other disorders. Parents with children in the program often are encouraged to provide temporary quarters to other, recovering youngsters unable to live at home.
McVeigh would not disclose the family's destination, but said Billy McCoy recently had accepted employment in Utah, the family's home before Hasbrouck Heights.
The McCoys could not be reached for comment. But before his conviction on the municipal violation, Billy McCoy told the judge he would move if the borough barred his support of the KIDS program.
Lucchi said Tuesday that he believed the McCoys intended to "do a humanitarian act," not break the zoning law.
Last spring, the McCoys neighbors complained to borough officials that six to eight youngsters were living at the family's Central Avenue home.
The McCoys maintained then that the number of KIDS clients at their home typically numbered three or less.
Joseph Woodcock, the attorney for Hasbrouck Heights, said Tuesday the borough had not asked the McCoys to leave.
"Whatever they did, they did of their own fee will," Woodcock said.
Mcveigh called the McCoys "caring, intelligent people" who were offended by their neighbors' actions.
The Hasbrouck Heights case was the first zoning-code challenge to the rehabilitation program, and KIDS director Miller Newton said it could be a threat to other host homes.
A similar case, for example, is pending in Lodi, where 200 residents have rallied against a neighbor they say is operating an illegal boarding house for KIDS.