RICHMOND HILL — An annual parade to celebrate the spring Hindu festival of Holi will return to Liberty Avenue this year after one of the feuding organizers accused an NYPD boss of canceling last year's permit as a favor to a friend.
This year's Phagwah Parade is set to kick off at Liberty Avenue and 133rd Street on March 26, after a judge ruled this week that two feuding parade organizers have to work out a way to plan it together, according to court documents.
The agreement comes after last year's parade didn't roll for the first time in 27 years, a blow to Richmond Hill's large Guyanese community and others who celebrate the festive holiday.
The chaos began when board members began fighting over control of one of the parade organizations, according to a report last year in the New York Times.
Then two separate parade organizers both applied for the right to host the parade on the same route on the same date and time, prompting then-106th Precinct Commanding Officer Deputy Inspector Jeffrey Schiff to shoot down the application filed by Herman Singh of the Arya Spiritual Center, Inc., while approving the one filed by Romeo Hitlall of the The Federation of Hindu Mandirs.
However, the parade never got off the ground amid a series of bitter feuds within the parade-organizing community, resulting in a series of lawsuits.
Singh filed another permit for the 2016 parade, which was again rejected by Schiff.
"Two rival groups applied for same route, same day, same time, and obviously that can't happen," Schiff said. "Since they both were in litigation, we let the courts handle it."
The second rejection sparked another lawsuit from Singh claiming Schiff was "preventing and interfering" with Singh's plan to run the parade as a favor to his "friend," Hitlall, according to court documents.
"Respondent Deputy Inspector used or is attempting to use his office to reverse the approval of the application so that an approval could be issued to his friend(s) and person from whom he receives personal benefits and uses his public office to return favors and benefits of said friend or associates," the lawsuit said.
Schiff, who was transferred to the 105th Precinct on Tuesday after more than two years at the 106th Precinct, said the accusations were "total nonsense."
He said his precinct denied Singh's permits two years in a row and opted to support Hitlall's application because Hitlall applied on behalf of The Federation of Hindu Mandirs, who have been the "consistent" applicants to run the Phagwah parade for more than a decade.
"I was going with that logic and reasoning of the consistent organization that has been applying for it," Schiff said.
He added that the NYPD met with Singh and Hiltall last year in an attempt to resolve the issues, but that they couldn't reach an agreement — even with mediation from a judge, he said.
Singh's allegations that he is a personal friend of Hitlall are "immature," Schiff said, adding that as commanding officer, it is his job to interact with the community.
He was recently honored by the Richmond Hill-South Ozone Park Lions Club, of which Hitlall is the president. He has also accepted Hitlall's invitations to meet various dignitaries, he said.
"I'm invited to a lot of locations, so when [Hitlall] invites me over to meet a foreign dignitary and I have the time and the inclination, I'm going to go and shake hands," he said.
"I'm a social individual and it's the polite thing to do."
On Wednesday, Queens Supreme Court Justice Allan Weiss ruled that this year's event will be a "joint parade," organized by both Hitlall and Singh.
The two will independently appoint other co-organizers and a new bank account will be opened for expenses, which will be monitored by both, the judge ruled.
Meetings about the parade will be held in a "neutral location," Weiss said, ordering both groups to "refrain from making disparaging remarks to or about one another and shall conduct themselves with charity at all times."
Reached by phone, both Singh and Hitlall said they were happy the parade was happening.
"We're definitely happy and we moved things along," Hitlall said.
"The injunction has been lifted and everything is OK. The parade is on."
