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Elephant-sized problem for police officers in Kiryas Joel

Police answering a complaint about parked vehicles blocking
Schunnemunk Road outside Kiryas Joel Sunday night came across an
unexpected scene at the unoccupied Achdus Summer Homes bungalow
colony.
There, at around 6:30 p.m., they found an elephant lumbering and
prancing for the delight of 400 to 500 people as circus music played
through loudspeakers, police Sgt. Cliff Weeks said. Parked in the
vicinity were roughly 50 to 70 cars, a tractor-trailer truck, a dozen
school buses and a Kiryas Joel fire truck, Weeks said.
It turns out the four-ton pachyderm had been hired to entertain
Kiryas Joel children who sing psalms together every Saturday morning
to pray for the sick and needy. Once a year, the community rewards
them with a special event – usually a tamer activity, such as the
puppet show the kids got last year, said Rabbi Ely Shloma Kohn, who
helps coordinate the program.
Town officials broke up the elephant show, saying no one warned
them or applied for a permit. Building Inspector Gary Thomasberger
said yesterday that he issued no citations but would write a letter
to the Kiryas Joel School District, which had paid the trainer.
The elephant – a 30-year-old female from Florida en route to a
summer gig in the Adirondacks – also gave an hour-long performance
yesterday morning in a school-bus parking lot on Bakertown Road in
Kiryas Joel. That show was for the students and staff of the Kiryas
Joel School District, the community's public school for handicapped
children.