Some College Point residents are tired of being kept awake.
Neighbors of a 24-hour truck company at 129-16 14th Avenue say dozens of loud, heavy-duty vehicles come and go at all hours of the night and into the early morning.
“It’s rough. We like to have our windows open in the summer. They’re running their trucks, going up and down the block. It wakes people up,” said David Toic, 34. “We don’t want to be sleeping and all of a sudden hear trucks running.”
More than 20 people have signed a petition calling for action against the company, TNP Trucking.
Turan Ates, who has been leading the fight for 17 years, said the daily disturbances keep his 11-year-old daughter tossing and turning in bed.
“I can’t wake her up in the morning for school,” said the 47-year-old father of three. “These people, they don’t let us sleep. We shouldn’t be living like that.”
Ates has filed nearly 90 complaints with the city since 2011, officials said. He claims trucks constantly idle for more than three minutes, the maximum time frame under city law.
“They come here, pick up a coffee and leave their trucks on for hours,” he said. “It’s not just one truck. There are 20 trucks. When they come here, they park their trucks all around the block completely.”
Dominick Sciallo, who lives directly across the street from the truck yard, said vehicles dominate the street.
“It’s a disaster over here,” he said.
A spokesperson for the city’s Department of Environmental Protection said it has conducted 70 inspections but never found any violations.
A TNP Trucking official said vehicles come and go because they work around the clock, hauling beams and debris away from city emergencies on highways, tunnels and bridges.
“If the city had a big emergency, we would be called in,” said David Francis, who runs TNP’s College Point headquarters. “If this is a 24-hour operation, where am I supposed to go?”
Francis said the company is unionized under Teamsters Local 282 and has been in business for more than 30 years. Newly bought trucks have clean air equipment to reduce toxins, he added.
“We’re not doing anything wrong,” Francis said.
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