March 5, 2008
Wiccan Witch Hunt on Staten Island
The Staten Island Advance has been following the turmoil brewing between a Wiccan family and their neighbors.
The South Shore home at the center of the controversy is a duplex, half belonging to the Wiccan devotees, Ivy Colmer Vanderborgh, her husband and mother (the husband isn't Wiccan). Not hiding their practices, their property is decorated with a "witchy weather vane and cauldron out front," along with a massive stained-glass pentacle.
Before the front yard cauldron tipped locals off however, they were "exposed" when they appeared on a Staten Island Community Television show about their religion two years ago. Since then, neighbors have allegedly been verbally harassing them and damaging their property (for which one neighbor was arrested). They also claim their dog Buffy, who died, was poisoned.
The allegations are going both ways, though. Neighbors say they receive letters (often in the form of fliers under their windshield) from the Wiccan duo threatening to cast a spell. There are also frequent noise complaints, and today the SI Advance reports that neighbors are not too happy about the family feeding stray cats by leaving open cans of food on the sidewalk; something they say is attracting rats.
The Wiccans claim their religion is being persecuted by their neighbors, and they're being unfairly treated by the police. The police just seem fed up, with one telling the Advance, "It's a situation whereby one neighbor's actions or behaviors are clearly aggravating other people on the block. However, it does not appear that these behaviors are in violation of the law, nor does it appear that the religious practices of the family have anything to do with the neighbors' frustrations with the family."
Photograph of a witch shadow by Atomische on Flickr
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Wow what year is this? People are retarded.
I'm through with playing by the rules of someone elses game.
Too late for second-guessing.
Too late to go back to sleep!
It's time to trust my instints.
Close my eyes, and leap!
I think the year is around 1680 AD on the Staten Island calender. It was 1679 when I used to work there. Time moves slowly on Staaten Eye-yah-land.
If these Wiccans put fliers on their neighbors' windshields, shouldn't there be tangible evidence to support this claim?
I say, a plague (of idiocy) on all of their neighbors' houses!
Why is it that every jerk-off (like sinisterteashop) that responds regarding SI has to make some cynical remark?
We get it; the rest of the city is cool and we suck, now move on - assholes.
Guido no understand not cross. Guido boom boom neighbor who pale like moon. Juicehead strong and prove point.
@JP Lynch
They do it because it's fashionable. Also, it's usually done by someone that just got off the plane in NYC and consider themselves a "long time New Yorker" thus giving them rights to talk about something they know nothing about.
Comments like that make it easy to pick out the "Trendy New Yorkers."
Bizzle - I get that but it does get tiresome. Thanks.
nice picture
A girl asked me to kiss her where it smells. So I took her to Staten Island.
-Any long time New Yorker
Staten Islanders got a raw deal. They once had this lovely bucolic land of plenty. And then the Italians fled the blacks in Brooklyn, ruining things forever. The Wiccans were probably there first.
Oh those craaaazy Italians... always fleeing, always witch hunting
Stop blaming the blacks for everything.