South Boston Lithuanian club to owners of neighboring condo: We're not doing the bad stuff you claim, we were here first and what did you expect moving near West Broadway?

The South Boston Lithuanian Citizens Association yesterday asked a judge to deny a request by two neighbors that he shut it down immediately, saying that even if they could make the case that events and patrons at the group's West Broadway home were excessively noisy and rowdy - which it says they can't - the harm to the association would far outweigh any problems the couple is having.

Adam and Shelby Burns, who in 2016 purchased a condo on E Street at Athens Street, behind the association's four-story building at 368 West Broadway, filed suit in Suffolk Superior Court on Thursday, charging noise and rowdiness by drunken, drugged patrons at and after events has gotten so bad they sometimes try to find alternative places to sleep when they learn of upcoming events. They filed affidavits by two West Broadway residents to support their claim; one of the two said things have gotten so bad he's had to sell his condo.

Along with their suit, the Burnses filed a request for a temporary restraining order that would prohibit the association from renting out its facilities to outside group while their suit is pending - including several events scheduled for this month.

Suffolk Superior Court Judge Debra Squires-Lee scheduled a hearing yesterday afternoon on the couple's request for a temporary restraining order to bar any events at the association facility while their case is pending. Court records as of today have yet to be updated with the results of her hearing.

In an answer to the complaint, the association's lawyer, Scott Clifford, offered a series of arguments against any sort of pre-trial injunction, starting with the basic "We were here first."

The association purchased the building - in which it uses the top two floors - in 1949. Clifford cited a 1992 Massachusetts Appeals Court ruling involving a couple who moved next to a bakery that had been there for decades, which in turn cited a 1914 Supreme Judicial Court ruling involving a group of summer-cottage owners who sued the granite company they moved next to. In that case, the state's highest court concluded: "No one can move into a quarter given over to foundries and boiler shops and demand the quiet of a farm."

Clifford noted the nature of West Broadway: "The area in question is lined with many commercial establishments up and down West Broadway including several restaurants, bars and nightclubs."

In an affidavit, an association official said the club is in full compliance with Boston and state noise regulations and that, after a BPD licensing detective urged the association to buy a meter to monitor noise levels around the building during events, it did, and now has an employee walk around the building hourly with the meter to make sure any noise isn't excessive.

He added that the association videoed the employee walking around taking the readings - one of the Burnses' complaints was that the facility manager has taken to harassing them, including by videoing them both on the street and in their home. The association also has somebody clean up any trash after events, he wrote.

Clifford continued that the association relies on leases by outside groups to support itself and maintain the building and that barring events would immediately jeopardize its finances. He charged the the Burnses' attorney failed to provide a single case to justify harming the association to that extent, let alone to show that the association owes them some sort of legal duty to completely shield them from annoyances he says aren't happening, or in legal terms, that "the gravity of the alleged harm outweighs the utility of the Defendants' conduct in the use of the Premises."

Complete answer (3.3M PDF).