Caitlin Winders is 38 weeks pregnant. Three or four nights a week, she told the Clay Town Board on Aug. 18, she can hear music and feel the vibrations from Sharkey's bar and grill inside her house on Old Cove Road, a half-mile away. She and her husband, Jarrett, said they've measured the concerts there at 95 decibels or higher — well above the town code's 45 dBA steady-state limit and its 65 dBA cap for brief spikes — and asked the board to deny Sharkey's a special permit if the business ever applies for one. That "if" mattered: no permit application from Sharkey's was on the agenda that night. The Winders said Joseph Grispino, the town's Commissioner of Code Enforcement since January, told them the concerts have been illegal for years because Sharkey's has never obtained the special permit the code requires, and that his office is currently prosecuting the business in court. The fine is $250 per offense or up to 15 days in jail — a number Winders said Sharkey's "does not care" about, since a single concert brings in far more than that. Supervisor Damian Ulatowski told the couple he would look into the matter and try to reach "a fair resolution"; the Town Clerk will follow up when there's more to report. No vote was taken, because there was nothing yet to vote on. That turned out to describe the whole night. Every item the board actually voted on Aug. 18 passed 6-0 — a routine zone change, a fuel-tank storage permit, a prevailing-wage bump, a roof contract, ARPA fund transfers, a fire hydrant, an ethics audit. But the meeting's two most contested land-use fights didn't get a vote at all. They got pushed to another day. The bigger of the two: McDonald's USA's drive-thru proposal for 4979 West Taft Road. The special-permit portion of the case had already been adjourned four times since April; a related zone-change request, once, since July. Joe Frateschi, an attorney for McDonald's, told the board the company wants to be "a good neighbor" and won't reapply for the site if the town turns it down. The real fight was over traffic. Gordon Stansbury, a traffic consultant hired by McDonald's, presented a study assuming most cars would exit through the existing signal on Taft Road; the town's own consultant, C&S, predicted most traffic would instead cut through onto Cedar Post Road to avoid it — a projection Stansbury said was based on data from Florida. Residents who live on Cedar Post and on nearby Hollywood Circle described the difficult left turns and blind exits they'd be navigating either way. Ulatowski closed the hearing without a vote and said a decision would likely come at the board's next meeting. The other unresolved fight was over stop signs. The board had proposed installing three-way stop signs at each of four intersections — Northfield Drive and Tallmadge Road, Northfield Drive and Twin Elms Lane, Tallmadge Road and Richardson Drive, and Twin Elms Lane and Richardson Drive — after neighbors complained about cars cutting through to avoid construction and a dangerous blind bend nearby. Highway Superintendent Joe Nicoletti and Town Constable Mike McCarthy both told the board that state law bars using stop signs to control speed, and that too many of them can actually encourage drivers to speed up between intersections. Councilor Ryan Pleskach raised speed bumps instead, pointing to the Fairways neighborhood, where Nicoletti said they've worked well without causing trouble for snowplows. Ulatowski said he has a liaison with the Sheriff's Department who could monitor the intersections, and Councilor David Capria suggested waiting until school is back in session to do it. The board then voted 6-0 to adjourn the hearing itself to Sept. 25. Everything without a fight moved quickly. The board approved a zone change for the Morgan Road property, a fuel-tank storage permit in an industrial district, a prevailing-wage increase for Town Hall's custodial contract (to $50,742.26 a year, up from $47,762.14), a $158,400 roof contract for the Highway Department, ARPA transfers for a Town Hall boiler ($129,360), Clay Park field lights ($293,100 and $156,750), tennis and pickleball court renovations ($96,663.05) and park restrooms ($11,056), a new fire hydrant on State Route 31, and the town's 2025 ethics audit — each by a 6-0 vote. It also scheduled Sept. 3 hearings on a Northern Credit Union drive-thru and a four-lot subdivision on Oasis Lane. What's left hanging: whether McDonald's gets its drive-thru, whether the Richardson Drive-area neighborhood gets its stop signs, and whether Sharkey's ever asks the town for permission to do what it's already being taken to court for doing without it.