Seinfeld Declassified Episode 40: Can you lose sleep from neon lights?

Hello, Newman. So let’s jump right in here, shall we? The season continues with one of my personal favorites, the chicken roaster. The episode follows the escapades of the k man as he tries to evade the red neon light shining through this window from kenny roger’s roasters but is it possible for those kinds of lights to keep people up at night? Well, here’s what our investigators uncovered.

So believe it or not, the episode does stem from two real-life incidents wherein a law firm went to war with kenny rogers roasters over the stench that was venting into their office from the restaurant down below. The second incident in question occurred when one of the writers found their apartment bathed in red light from the empire hotel just across the street. Whether he lost any sleep over it is unclear but there is plenty of evidence to suggest people who live in neighborhoods lit up with neon signs are more likely to experience sleep deprivation.

This is naturally why he wanted to switch apartments but did he have any legal recourse here? Well, our team of lawyers did some digging & here’s what they found. According to NY law, disturbing the peace is not merely limited to physical altercations but, rather, verbal as well. This includes “creating a hazardous or physically offensive condition which serves no legitimate purpose.” Now we know the sign is there to tell people they’re open obviously but they don’t necessarily need a neon light to do that. So if he had bothered to call Jackie (which was a wasted opportunity, if you ask me), he might have actually had a solid case, especially if it kept him up at night as that could very well fall under the jurisdiction of disturbing the peace.

Ironically, in real life, the k man was basically vegan so they just had him chew it up & spit it out (offscreen, of course). But in any case, switching apartments was a bad idea. So that’s about all I had for you guys today but thank you so much for reading. Have a great weekend & I will see you back here next week for a brand new episode of Seinfeld Declassified. Until then, this is the x factor signing off.