Police & Courts

An automatic fire alarm in the butler’s pantry at a Somers Place house in Sag Harbor was triggered on the morning of July 12. Firefighters attributed it to “overtoasted toast in the toaster.”

The story of the beaches last weekend was yellow flags and more Portuguese man-o-wars than could fit in a five-gallon bucket.

Fourteen people including Abigail Disney, a great-niece of Walt Disney and an activist who supports raising taxes on the wealthy, were arrested at East Hampton Town Airport on Friday after blocking vehicles from entering or exiting the airport's parking lot for about 90 minutes. One activist described the demonstration as intending to call out "the very grotesque, reckless consumption of the 1 percent" and its impact on climate change.

A proposed amendment to the East Hampton Town code would allow volunteer firefighters and ambulance workers with two years of qualifying service to apply for a partial tax exemption.

Rip currents kept East Hampton Town and Village lifeguards busy over the Fourth of July holiday weekend, but this week the story was less red flags and more “elevated marine life”: Some 20 sharks, mostly spinner sharks but also threshers, were spotted off Main Beach on Saturday and farther off town beaches as well.

A 72-year-old Sag Harbor Village resident was taken by ambulance to Stony Brook Southampton Hospital on Friday evening for treatment of a serious dog bite. The man told police his dog had been fighting with another dog on Bay Street and he’d been bitten while trying to break it up.

An East Hampton Town police officer has filed a complaint with New York State's Division of Human Rights asserting that she has been a victim of sexual harassment and retaliatory working conditions, and has been denied promotions based on her gender.

There was another shoplifting incident at the Balenciaga store recently, though nothing on the scale of the one last year, when an organized ring of five thieves made off with $94,000 in luxury handbags and led police on a high-speed chase before being captured. On June 25, a woman stole a $520 pair of sunglasses while her male companion was making a purchase. Surveillance cameras caught the incident on tape.

State Attorney General Letitia James has announced the sentencing of a Bridgehampton investment adviser to one to three years in prison for what she described as a “multi-million-dollar securities and loan fraud scheme that cheated dozens of New Yorkers out of nearly $7 million.

On May 25, the day before a fire tore through Maison Close restaurant at 435 East Lake Drive in Montauk, David Browne, the chief fire marshal for the town, did a routine fire inspection and found 11 violations. Four involved improper use of electrical cords and three more cited overdue servicing of fire suppression equipment. In the official report from the fire marshal's office none of those were blamed, and the cause of the fire was listed as undetermined.

This week Senior Chief Nathaniel J. O’Connell relieved Master Chief William B. Harris, who has served as Officer in Charge of Station Montauk for the past four years.

A June 17 traffic stop on Pantigo Road in front of East Hampton Justice Court led to felony weapons charges for an Islip Terrace man.