Q. Due to the fruit trees growing nicely on our back yard, we decided this year to make the suka on the front yard facing the street. The problem is that our neighborhood is lately not that safe anymore, and the kids and me too, are afraid to sleep close to the street. Someone told me that there may be a shailah with the suka and it may not be kosher at all, since it isn’t fit to sleep in it at night. Is that true?
A. Shulchan Aruch (O.H. 640: 4) rules that one should not erect his suka on a smelly or windy site, that will exempt him from eating or sleeping there, due to the smell or the cold wind. Rema (ibid.) adds that if he is afraid from robbers or thieves when he is in his suka, he does not comply with the mitzva even when the fear is not there, as during the day (Mishna Berura 19).
Mishna Berura (ibid. 20) however, quotes Poskim (Lebush, Magen Avraham, see Biur Halacha ibid.), who maintain that after the fact one complies, since one can eat there without fear during the day.
Shaarei Teshuva (ibid.) quotes a similar ruling in the name of the Chacham Tzvi. He also adds that often in northern countries, it is too cold at night to sleep in the suka and yet we do eat there during the day.
Piskei Teshuvos (640: n. 18) mentions that it is common for some shuls, apartment buildings and restaurants to keep an empty suka that is close to the street for all to use, that is left unlocked at night. (See also question 929, regarding a small suka of 70cm. by 70 cm., in which one can hardly sleep there)
Horav Shlomo Miller Shlit’a added, that even a suka where one would not spend the night in it for security reasons, one may well sleep there during the day and therefore it is called fit for sleep.
Rabbi A. Bartfeld as advised by Horav Shlomo Miller and Horav Aharon Miller Shlit’a