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Blooming Grove now has a town-wide law regulating home-buying solicitations in residential neighborhoods, spurred by the push by investors representing Hasidic interests to snap up homes in the southern part of town, and following a law previously enacted in the town's Village of South Blooming Grove.

In drafting the law, the Town Board did extensive study of a 20-page South Blooming Grove law regulating so-called "residential solicitation." Blooming Grove Supervisor Robert Fromaget said the Town Board passed the law 3-0 at its July 12 meeting, with two members absent.

As the Town Board worked toward developing the law, Fromaget said he'd gotten calls from homeowners in the Clove Road and Mountain Lodge sections of town complaining about the home-buying push. Those sections of the town are only about two miles northeast of the Worley Heights subdivision in the Village of South Blooming Grove, which has been inundated by offers from Hasidic home-buyers and their representatives.

Commenting on the board's approval of the law, Fromaget said it wasn't directed at any particular group. "It's directed at anybody who isn't allowing people to have peace and quiet and asking questions they shouldn't be asking," Fromaget said.

The law spells out a wide range of regulations, including licensing of door-to-door solicitors and forbidding solicitors to ring doorbells at homes bearing "No soliciting" signs.