Myself, my business, and my clients are being harassed by the business next door, can we sue?

Other Civil Matters

I made a similar post a couple days ago but didn't get many replies, I'll try to make it shorter this time. Located in NY.

My commercial space is located in a basement - I'm in-between two other businesses. One is a recording studio, and the other is a yoga studio. I run a business in a basement where people come to be active and this involves running, throwing around sports equipment, and hitting things. Naturally, this can be somewhat loud. I've invested in soundproofing foam and padding, but this hardly helps since the wall between myself and the other businesses don't have sound insulation.

The noise coming from the recording studio is deafening to me and they are much louder than I am, however I don't complain since that's the nature of their business. The yoga studio next door does not hear them as much as I do and does not really complain about them. However, the yoga studio has been pestering me (the business in the middle) non-stop about soundproofing my space (more than I already have) when I have no obligation to do so (I'd have to tear down the entire wall between us and stuff it with insulation which will be costly). They want me to bear the entire burden of the cost and that's obviously not something I'm going to do especially since they haven't even tried soundproofing on their end already. The landlord isn't really doing anything to help even though they have verbally admitted to me that I have no obligation to reduce noise at all.

Now here's the problem. In the past few weeks, the yoga studio owners have done the following:

- Gone from complaining to us about the noise to ignoring us when they see us and giving dirty looks

- Tried to get us kicked out of our business by complaining to the landlord, 311, and other public resources

- Written a 1 star review on google calling us "terrible neighbors," saying that we were in the business of "making as much noise as possible," and telling people to not visit our establishment

- Posted videos on youtube complaining about the noise from our space

- Barged into our business and started yelling (while we had clients in the establishment) about the noise, was told multiple times to leave and did not listen, and we ended up having the police come and he got a warning for trespassing (I have this on video)

- Two hours after the trespassing situation, the other owner (it's a husband and a wife) stopped one of our clients while they were on their way in to complain about our business to them and told them that we were terrible people and it was a terrible business

I've had enough of this. My landlord doesn't seem to want to help since the yoga studio has been complaining non-stop which has made my landlord speak to ME about trying to accommodate THEM in someway (even though they have been harassing me and my other neighbor is literally 10 times louder than me!). My question is, can I sue the yoga studio owners in any way? Do I have a case for harassment or defamation of character? Is there any way to sue for damages and then lawyer fees? Their inaccurate review has caused my rating to drop significantly since we are a new business. I was thinking of sending a cease and desist letter but I don't think it will do anything since it seems like they are nuts. Thanks for any help.

Posted Dec 6, 2018, 12:59 AM UTC · edited

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