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Mary Wallace is Happy To Be Back in the Pool, But Will She Stay in Her Lane?
By Tina Traster
Mary Wallace, an 81-year-old retired Legal Aid lawyer, said the Clarkstown Police have shown up three times at her door in Central Nyack over the past 26 years.
“In 1998 to express condolences on the death of my 13-year-old son,” she said. “In 2023 to inform me that my husband had suffered a seizure while driving on Westchester Avenue and was in White Plains Hospital.”
And “in 2026 to explain that the Town Supervisor and the Superintendent of Parks & Recreation had decided to drop charges against me for sitting on a bench at Germonds Park by myself.”
What began as a forceful reaction to zealous enforcement of correct bathing suit material at Germonds Pool last week ended up with a senior citizen being arrested but hours later being visited by the police who said, “never mind.” Since last Monday, Wallace has been at the center of a controversy that raises questions about appropriate swimwear and pool bans, but also how far-reaching and unbridled is the Superintendent’s power to ban a resident from the pools and parks, why a banned resident has no avenue to appeal the decision, and most importantly why the police arrested Wallace and then reversed course in less than four hours.
The Town Attorney said he could not discuss the case.
Wallace admits she told two young girls swimming in the pool not to listen to lifeguards ejecting them from the water on Monday. Clarkstown’s Superintendent of Parks & Recreation Matt Veronesi said he banned Wallace from the pool because she was “interfering with the lifeguard staff while they were enforcing rules at Germonds Park.”
The long list of aquatic rules for Clarkstown’s pools includes prohibitions against name-calling, racial insults, negative or verbal insults, abusive language, foul language, or swearing. The list also includes spitting, smoking, tobacco products, and vaping, malicious destruction of property and stealing. Nowhere in the rules does it says a resident can be banned for “interfering with the lifeguards,” though it is reasonable to conclude that such an act could endanger someone if the lifeguards are trying to save someone’s life.
In Wallace’s case, she said she had come to the aid of two young girls because she had been witnessing a pattern of teen and twenty-something lifeguards looking at swimmers’ labels in intimate places to prove that the material of their swimwear was suitable. Wallace described the act as trying to protect two young girls.
But Veronesi says swimmers must have on swimwear that is specifically tagged and manufactured for swimming. The town code says, “No swimmer or bather shall enter the water or any adjacent bathing area unless clothed in a suitable bathing dress or suit.” There is no definition of “suitable” in the code.
The aquatics rules say a “Patron will receive one verbal warning for any violation of any of the above rules and regulations, and if it continues, they will be asked to leave the facility for that day. If any violation of any of the above rules and regulations has not improved within a reasonable time, he/she will be suspended for 2 days or longer, depending on the nature of the offense and at the discretion of the Aquatic Director.”
Several hours after the incident at the pool on Monday, Wallace said she received a call from Veronesi while she was at home. “He said I was suspended from the pool for three days.” Wallace said she did not receive any earlier warning she was violating any rules, adding she was stunned by the call. “He never mentioned the park, just the pool.”
RCBJ published a story about Wallace’s ban on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, Wallace went to the pool to pick up a thermometer she’d left behind. She asked the person manning the booth if she could come in and swim and was told her pass was suspended. Wallace said she also asked the staff to see “surveillance footage” that Veronesi said had been collected the day she was banned but was refused. Wallace says she left the gated pool area and retreated to a blue bench in the park to sit.
Wallace said she was unaware the suspension included all of Clarkstown’s parks, in addition to pools.
The Superintendent’s authority to ban a resident from the parks is limited by the town code to specific violations. None match the cited reason for Wallace’s suspension, which calls into question whether the swimmer could be banned from town parks based on “interference” with lifeguards at a town pool.
At 5:52 on Wednesday, two Clarkstown police officers approached Wallace. According to their report, which RCBJ has reviewed, they had been called by the Superintendent, who’d said Wallace had been unruly and was banned not only from the pools but from the grounds of all three Clarkstown parks. Wallace said she never received an email outlining the terms of the ban. Further, she told police she is a Clarkstown taxpayer who had the right to be in the park, even if she was banned from the pool.
The police report says the officers spent an hour trying to persuade Wallace to leave on her own volition. They showed her a copy of a letter that she had not yet received by email nor regular mail, from the Superintendent that said she was banned from all of Clarkstown’s pools and the parks.
But she disagreed. And when she refused to leave the park bench, Wallace said the police took out handcuffs – though this detail is not in the police report. She said she screamed a blood-curdling scream because she is arthritic and has balance issues and uses a cane and could not bear the thought of being handcuffed. She said she screamed “Help, someone help me.” She said the police said they were going to bring her to jail, but then put the handcuffs away. Instead they lifted her off the bench, with each officer taking her by the arms.
At this point, Wallace, who’d practiced law for decades, understood she was being detained.
She was led to the police car, but rather than sit in the car, she waited by it while one of the officers wrote up a ticket for trespassing. The Notice of Appearance told her to appear in town justice court on Aug. 5th.
That night Wallace was distraught. She spent a couple of hours trying to absorb what had happened and was shocked that a senior sitting on a bench in a Clarkstown town park could be arrested for trespassing and treated the way she was. She was even more taken aback when two police officers rang her bell around 8 pm, some two hours after the arrest, and told her to “rip up the ticket,” though nothing was given to her in writing.
On Thursday, Wallace called the police station to confirm her citation had been dismissed, and the next day she went to the police station to get the police report that had been filed. It said: “while out at Germonds pool the undersigned was informed by (the report redacts name but it is clear that the name is the Superintendent’s) that he contacted (the report redacts another name, though this is either the town attorney or a town official) and was informed by him that it would be in the interest of the town to decline to pursue charges of trespassing on Wallace.” The report says the police went back to tell Wallace about the “Superintendent’s” decision. It says: “Wallace was instructed to ignore (the) appearance ticket and be guided by the instructions of the superintendent of parks and recreation for further notice.”
It wasn’t until Friday that Wallace received a copy of the Superintendent’s ban letter by mail. The envelope is stamped July 22 – two days after the Superintendent ousted her from the pool and the same day she was arrested.
It remains unclear who decided that “it was in the best interest of the town” to cancel her citation and appearance but it does raise questions about how justice is meted out in the town. How did the situation morph from a three-day ban (that seemed to have turned into a four-day ban without explanation) to an arrest for trespassing to a non-specific decision to drop the charge?
On Saturday, Wallace returned to the pool to swim laps. She said she was glad to get back to her routine. “Swimming every day is the one thing I can do to deal with my health issues.”
But she added, “What infuriates me is that they suspended me without a warning. They were supposed to issue a warning. A warning is not a suspension.”
Wallace said “I’m happy to be here today to swim but I’m still very confused. I still don’t know what rule I violated. Where is my free speech? The lines are blurred. I plan to pursue legal options.”
