Can a religiously affiliated day care facility circumvent a zoning regulations (building, fire and health regulations) on the grounds that their enforcement violates religious freedom?
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Answer: When the regulations are neutral and generally applicable the answer is “no”. Dreskin v. Borough of Bogota, No. CV 26-7866 (SDW) (SDA), 2026 WL 2209973, at *1 (D.N.J. July 31, 2026).
Here is an A.I. generated summary of the decision:
The decision in Dreskin v. Borough of Bogota concerns Tanya Rivkah Dreskin’s request for emergency injunctive relief allowing her to continue operating PLAYfully, a Jewish religious school/day care, from a residence in Bogota, New Jersey. The Borough had cited the program for building, fire, health, and zoning-related violations after concluding that it was operating an unauthorized day care or preschool in a residential zone. Dreskin argued that her current five-child operation qualified as a protected “family day care” under New Jersey law and that enforcement against PLAYfully burdened her religious exercise because the program provided Jewish religious instruction to young children.
The court denied the temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction. A central reason was jurisdictional: the court concluded it lacked authority to review the building, fire, and health code enforcement matters because New Jersey law channels those appeals to state administrative bodies, state court, or municipal court. Since Dreskin could not show that the federal district court had jurisdiction over those code-enforcement challenges, she could not establish a likelihood of success on the merits, which is required for preliminary injunctive relief.
On the religious freedom claims, the court rejected Dreskin’s Free Exercise Clause argument because the building, fire, and health regulations appeared neutral and generally applicable. The court found no evidence that the ordinances targeted religion on their face or in practice. Dreskin pointed to secular day cares that allegedly received more favorable treatment, but the court held that she had not shown those businesses were similarly situated—particularly because she did not establish that they operated outside the five-child safe harbor or violated the same regulatory requirements. Without evidence of religious targeting or unequal treatment of comparable secular entities, the court concluded that the enforcement actions did not likely violate the Free Exercise Clause.
The court also rejected Dreskin’s RLUIPA claims. Although it recognized that religious instruction and education are protected religious exercise, it held that the Borough’s enforcement did not impose a “substantial burden” under RLUIPA because it did not make Dreskin’s religious exercise effectively impracticable. Instead, the court viewed the case as ordinary enforcement of health, safety, and land-use regulations based on alleged prior noncompliance, not a permanent bar on religious teaching. Her Equal Terms claim also failed because she did not identify a sufficiently comparable secular use treated better than PLAYfully. Finally, the court held that Dreskin had not shown irreparable harm: potential fines, compliance costs, and incidental effects on a religious program were not enough, especially where the enforcement scheme did not target religious conduct.
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