Oshawa family facing $250 ticket for basketball net
Joshua Roberto, 13, plays basketball despite being visually impaired, and his family worries they'll lose front-yard net
Thestar.com
Aug. 14, 2015
By Lauren Pelley
Joshua Roberto dribbles across the pavement in front of his Oshawa home before shooting his basketball into the net with a swish.
With a big grin on his face, 13-year-old Roberto makes it look easy - even though he’s visually impaired in one eye and blind in the other.
But after a $250 ticket from the city, and a request to have the basketball net permanently removed, Roberto’s family says they’re worried he’ll have to give up the only sport he can play since experiencing vision loss several years ago.
“We started getting complaints as soon as we got the basketball net,” said his sister, Amanda Maciocia, 19.
She said the family first installed the net in the spring after moving to Whistler Dr. last fall. The first complaint from a neighbour came two weeks after they put the net up, and the family has had complaints “literally every day since,” Maciocia said.
A $250 nuisance ticket issued on June 25 was the “final straw,” she added.
Now, the family - including the siblings’ mom, Lisa Roberto - is appealing the ticket in hopes of keeping the basketball net that Maciocia and her boyfriend, Bradley Trudeau, 24, put up for the aspiring player.
“He used to love soccer before until he lost his vision in one eye,” Trudeau said.
A few years ago, Roberto suffered retinal detachment in both eyes, according to his sister. It left him with total vision loss in one eye and blurry vision in the other, which can’t be corrected with glasses or contacts.
“I play basketball pretty much every day with my friends ... It’s the only sport I can really play,” Roberto said.
Jerry Conlin, Oshawa’s director of municipal law enforcement, confirmed a complaint did come in about a “traffic issue” on Whistler Dr. but would not say which specific property was involved.
“The issue was that the car or trailer couldn’t fit through on the street, and the damage to the trailer because of the basketball net and people who were on the road,” Conlin said.
Maciocia said the basketball net issue is actually just the latest complaint from neighbours - for everything from a storage pod on their front lawn during home renovations, to a noise complaint on a weekday afternoon.
At one point, a neighbour reported their renovations to the city, after implying they didn’t have a permit for the work, Trudeau said.
“Inspector came, and sure enough, we didn’t need anything,” he said.
Maciocia said she has also received hundreds of dollars in tickets for her car being parked on the street, again because of neighbour complaints.
“They’re all being bullies to us,” said Trudeau.
But a neighbour one house over offered a different take.
“They can call it bullying - I wouldn’t call it that,” said Peter Gabriel, 55, who has lived in the neighbourhood for 15 years. He said various neighbours have made complaints about issues at the Roberto residence.
Their concerns include loud parties, cars parked across the front lawn, and garbage left out for extended periods of time, according to Gabriel.
“We had a snowplow try to get around the corner in the wintertime, and it couldn’t with all the vehicles being parked on the road ... I know they were being ticketed heavily, and rightly so,” he said.
As for the basketball net, he said it’s left on the road for “weeks on end,” in a dangerous corner spot, making it unsafe for the kids playing.
The $250 ticket Maciocia showed the Star had “BASKETBALL NET ON HIGHWAY” listed under the remarks. The net was on their property at the time the Star visited the home on Friday afternoon.
Maciocia said the net stays on their property, and neighbours simply “complain about something” every day.
