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VOL. 67, NO. 6
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Sikh Action
BY HERALD STAFF
pLainVieW@antonmediagroup.com
see RESEARCH on page 4
Temple files suit against town The Town of Oyster Bay halted construction on the Sikh temple. BY STEVE MOSCO
SmoSco@antonmediagroup.com
Members of a Sikh temple in Plainview believe they have fallen prey to religious discrimination and have filed a federal lawsuit against the Town of Oyster Bay. The Guru Gobind Singh Sikh Center, at 1065 Old Country Rd., filed a lawsuit against the town, its board and individual members of the board, challenging the town’s zoning regulations and what the temple charges is a targeted resolution effectively prohibiting temple members from worshiping. The complaint alleges violations of the First and Fourteenth amendments to the U.S. Constitution, the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) and the New York Constitution. Religious land uses are protected from undue burdens, discrimination and arbitrary treatment under RLUIPA, which was passed by Congress in 2000 to
prevent discrimination against religious institutions in land use regulation.
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The town’s highest priority is ensuring that there is adequate parking and that all relevant environmental reviews are followed so as to not disturb the surrounding community’s peaceful enjoyment of their neighborhood.”
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— Supervisor John Venditto The complaint describes the town’s “arbitrary, capricious and illegal actions taken to prevent the Sikh congregation from continuing to worship as it has since 1987, on the same property in a new replacement
(Photos by John Spagnoli) temple building.” In early 2014, the temple applied to the town to replace its aging house of worship with a modern facility. That same year, the town approved the temple’s site plan and a building permit was issued on March 7, 2014. The temple then demolished its existing building, and in October 2014, construction of the new Sikh temple commenced. After receiving quality of life complaints from residents, the town issued a Stop Work Order on July 2, 2015, as construction was nearing completion. In order to accommodate the residents, the temple submitted a new site plan that was approved and then nullified by the town board, which then directed the temple to reapply for site plan approval—which would have left the temple’s congregation without a house of worship for several years. “I’ve never seen a violation of RLUIPA as blatant as this,” said Roman Storzer, co-counsel for the temple. “To
see LAWSUIT on page 6
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A team of Winthrop-University Hospital researchers, led by Plainview’s Eitan M. Akirav, PhD, a research scientist at WinthropUniversity Hospital in Mineola, has found a biomarker for multiple sclerosis (MS), allowing the team to develop a new, minimally invasive test for the disease. The biomarker’s applications would include a more accurate diagnosis of MS, a better assessment of disease prognosis, how well the patient is responding to therapy and the possibility of measuring cell loss in the blood to test how well new drugs and therapies work. “We have tremendous hope that this will improve the quality of care that is available to patients with MS and allow us to diagnose the disease much sooner, so that they are able to receive the right therapy as soon as possible, and not be in limbo, waiting for another occurrence,” said Akirav. When relapsing-remitting MS—the most common form of the disease which affects 80–85 percent of MS patients and is characterized by symptoms that appear and then disappear before returning—is suspected, the patient must wait for a second