BAKERSFIELD, California—According to local news agency, Bakersfield Now, Randy Jones lives in a southwest Bakersfield neighborhood and said Tuesday that the Gurdwara behind his house is dumping raw sewage on the ground.
“I’ve seen raw sewage being dumped, trash, the noise and the smell. It’s just nasty,” Jones said. “Nobody will do anything about it.”
Jones also accused the gurdwara of “making large amounts of noise at odd hours.”
The Gurdwara, Guru Dashmesh Darbar, released a statement yesterday stating that “as a Sikh Gurdwara (Sikh community center & worship place), [we are] committed to the highest levels of environmental conservation and community service.”
“Some of our many ongoing initiatives are planting trees to create a park for children to play in and community garden for growing fresh vegetables.”
Randy Jones alleged his complaints have fallen on deaf ears. “They either walk away from you or ignore you,” Jones contended.
The Gurdwara, for their part responded, “The individual who lives behind the property has complained about issues in the past, unfortunately, he has chosen to voice those complaints while drunk, throwing rocks and beer cans at the Gurdwara property, and screaming racial slurs.”
They said they are open to dialogue and welcome “all comments and suggestions from our neighbors and local community that are conducted in a respectful manner while sober.”
Ranjit Singh, a Gurdwara committee member said, “There are seven to eight properties that border the gurdwara and this is the only person who has a problem. He gets drunk and climbs a ladder over the fence and hurls racial slurs at us.”
Another representative, who wished to remain anonymous, said that Randy was always coming on the property drunk, “he was rowdy and offensive.”
Ranjit Singh added, “We would love to sit down and speak with him, but he needs to use the front door.”
Bakersfield Now alleged that “Bakersfield Code Enforcement officials said they did find raw sewage on the property. City officials issued a notice Monday.”
Ranjit Singh said that the picture shown on the news that was alleged to be sewage was actually irrigation ditches. They have been planning to plant fruits and vegetables and had recently amended the soil with cow and chicken manure and irrigated it heavily, “We admit it smells right now.”
“The gurdwara uses a lot of fruits and vegetables,” he added.
“Bakersfield Code Enforcement and Environmental Health Department are invited to inspect the property, any violations found will be corrected in a timely manner,” read the Gurdwara’s statement.
“I think they should be required to cease and desist on the dumping of sewer, and that they should have the same codes the rest of us do and hook up to a sewer,” Jones said to Eyewitness News.
Ranjit Singh said that they have fully inspected septic tanks that they emptied on a weekly basis, “We pay to have them emptied and cleaned.”
The Gurdwara committee has decided to be proactive to counter the negative publicity created by a single neighbor, “We invite our neighbors and local community to join us Sunday, August 11th, at 2pm as we engage in further dialogue about growing community service initiatives. ”
They said they reached out to reporter Courtney Bryant of Bakersfield Now who first aired the issue to clear their name in the community but said they have not heard back.
also Sat Shri Akal
Even though he is a being rude we still have a responsibility to listen to his concerns and try are absolute best to come to a solution. More than likely he probably has some misinformation or something though we should also never be afraid to apologize if we made a mistake.
I’m a Bakersfield resident, and a Catholic. Growing up, my next-door neighbor and great friend was a Sikh. Please remember that many Bakersfield residents are open minded. The one racist idiot is making a lot of noise, so you notice him more than the other 99 of 100 people who are fine with your religion.
Always others are wrong as allegate, cheat, defame, file false complaint, lie and threat, we’re the perfect Sikhs, honest, pure, truthful, never do any wrong or crime and will never admit our wrong doing.
There is open question; Are we not adapting our religion teaching or our parents contaminated us?