Lavallette Tweaks Its Municipal Filming Ordinance

The Lavallette bayfront at Reese Avenue. (Photo: Shorebeat)

With the height of the Snooki era in the rear-view mirror, Lavallette officials this week introduced revisions to the borough’s filming ordinance in order to prevent residents from technically running afoul of the law.

“Our ordinance that was already on the books was too rigid,” said Councilwoman Joanne Filippone, who chairs the borough’s ordinance committee. “If you wanted to have a birthday party on your property and have it filmed, you wouldn’t ave been able to do that under our prior ordinance.”

The previous ordinance was drafted at the time the borough was faced with a request to film a spinoff of MTV’s “Jersey Shore” in town – a request that was unanimously rejected by the council. But beyond the raucous reputation of Jersey Shore, other film crews have traveled to Lavallette, sometimes with mixed results, leading officials to pass regulations within the scope of the law. The ordinance, however, widely defined “commercial” filming and regulated it on private property. The new ordinance better delineates filming for routine events in a residential home versus a commercial production which would effectively turn a home into a business by converting it to a de facto studio, with equipment and trucks parked on borough streets.

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“We’ve had some requests for permission to do filming for graduation parties,” said Filippone, which spurred the borough to modify the language of the ordinance after officials found it unnecessary for residents to feel the need to obtain a permit for a family event.

While some may question why such an ordinance is needed, at the time of its original passage, Lavallette was quickly becoming the center of unannounced productions launching in town, sometimes to the detriment of residents.

“Last year we had a film crew come in, and they took up all of Washington Avenue,” said Mayor Walter LaCicero at the time.

Public filming at borough properties such as the ocean beach still requires a permit for professional productions, however an event held in a public space that has been previously reserved for use by the event organizers – such as a wedding at the gazebo near the bay, for example – is excepted.

“We don’t want the lights and the trucks and all of the equipment,” said Filippone, except if the production is deemed permissible by the standards of the ordinance. “The amendment was to loosen it for private filming. The public filming is already regulated.”