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Carousel, Games, and Magic

Carousel, Games, and Magic

The Ladies Village Improvement Society of East Hampton is gearing up for its annual fair on Saturday.
The Ladies Village Improvement Society of East Hampton is gearing up for its annual fair on Saturday.
Durell Godfrey
By
Star Staff

The booths are set up and preparations are being finalized for the Ladies Village Improvement Society Fair, which opens at 10 a.m. on Saturday with attractions for children and adults alike. The fair will be on the lawn of the Gardiner Brown House at 95 Main Street with some of its activities for children set up in Herrick Park next door.

Magic Jeff the Magician will perform at 11 a.m. and noon. There will be face-painting, balloons, games with prizes for kids, cotton candy, a petting zoo, a giant slide, and an old-fashioned carousel.

For grown-ups, a silent auction with a tremendous range of items will be featured. Among the lots are two tickets to “Hamilton” on Broadway in September and V.I.P. box tickets and dinner at a Barbra Streisand performance at the Barclays Center on Aug. 11. Other attractions include booths filled with hats, vintage clothing, homemade jams and baked goods, flowers and potted plants, needlepoint and other crafts made by L.V.I.S. members, and jewelry.

As always, the Lions Club will serve up barbecued chicken from 3 to 7 p.m., with a clam bar with wine and beer opening at 2 p.m. to whet everyone’s appetites. There will be live music from Mamalee Rose and Friends to accompany those sticking around for the food. Tickets to the barbecue are $20.

Admission to the fair is by donation at the gate.

State Provides Dollars for Shoreline Studies

State Provides Dollars for Shoreline Studies

Plans are to be made in conjunction with existing coastal planning policies, such as  the longstanding and state approved Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan.
Plans are to be made in conjunction with existing coastal planning policies, such as the longstanding and state approved Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan.
Durell Godfrey
By
Joanne Pilgrim

A scientific analysis of East Hampton Town’s coastal geology is under way and an exploration of what to do in the face of climate change and sea level rise will be launched soon with the help of more than $400,000 in state grants. The East Hampton Town Board voted last Thursday to hire GEI Consultants to oversee the forthcoming efforts and is to appoint a citizens committee to work with the firm.

Under one grant, from the New York State Energy Research Development Authority, a Virginia-based consulting firm, Dewberry, is in the process of updating information on the town’s 114 miles of coastline — for instance, which areas of wetlands and beaches are eroding, and how quickly, and how beach sand or other sediments move along the shoreline, and how quickly. The project will provide a baseline for future plans that GEI will help develop.

Once “we understand the underlying science of it,” Jeremy Samuelson, a member of a town-appointed advisory committee for coastal planning and the director of Concerned Citizens of Montauk, said at a town board work session last week, the goal is to develop a Coastal Assessment Resiliency Plan that will “project the future of our relationship to the shoreline.” It is certain that the shoreline will change in the short term, Mr. Samuelson said, and it is prudent to have a plan as to how the town will react.

“This needs to be a community-led process,” he said, similar to the hamlet studies now under way, which have involved the public in shaping the focus and goals of the planning effort.

Based on the data about the town’s coastal areas and agreed-upon expectations regarding sea level rise or vulnerability to increased storms, models can be developed that will show what could happen in different parts of the shoreline. Then, Mr. Samuelson explained, decisions can be made about protecting or redeveloping infrastructure, what to do about shore-hardening structures, about properties that could be targeted for public purchase, or about areas where the best strategy is to move development away from the shore.

Plans are to be made in conjunction with existing coastal planning policies, such as  the longstanding and state approved Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan.

“It’s really important to get an understanding of the realities that we’re going to face as a community,” East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell said at the July 19 meeting, and to have the community “understand what the impacts are likely to be.” You then have the basis for the “more difficult conversation,” he said. “Then and only then we can have a discussion. What are the pros and cons of the strategies that might be on the table?”

 Representation on the committee of a broad spectrum of constituencies in town is key, Mr. Samuelson and Mr. Cantwell agreed, as is an open process in which the public can participate.

Race Echoes Trump Versus Clinton

Race Echoes Trump Versus Clinton

Lee Zeldin and Anna Throne-Holst
Lee Zeldin and Anna Throne-Holst
Morgan McGivern and Taylor K. Vecsey
Zeldin speaks of national security, Throne-Holst of the environment
By
Christopher Walsh

With the Nov. 8 election three months away and the major parties’ candidates for president looming over national debate, the fight to represent New York’s First Congressional District in the House of Representatives has been low key since Anna Throne-Holst defeated Dave Calone in a tight Democratic primary on June 28.

In interviews this week, Lee Zeldin, the Republican incumbent, emphasized national security, while Ms. Throne-Holst, a former Southampton Town Supervisor, said district residents were concerned about the environment and climate change. They agreed that the economy was a primary concern, however.

  Mr. Zeldin is mounting his first defense, having defeated Tim Bishop, a six-term Democrat, in 2014. Ms. Throne-Holst will attempt to unseat him in a race that is expected to be close and highly expensive. The Rothenberg-Gonzalez Political Report lists the race in its Toss-Up/Tilt Republican column.

Donald J. Trump, the Republican nominee for president, has galvanized both solid support and intense opposition in the district, which includes the Towns of East Hampton, Southampton, Shelter Island, Riverhead, Southold, and Brookhaven, and most of Smithtown. Mr. Zeldin endorsed Mr. Trump early in the game, while Ms. Throne-Holst hopes to use that endorsement against him.

“I certainly don’t agree with him on everything,” Mr. Zeldin said of Mr. Trump. “I believe we can be entering into better trade deals for the American economy and worker. I believe we need to do a better job strengthening the relationships with our allies, and identifying and eliminating the threat of terrorism coming from, primarily, the Middle East.”

However, while Mr. Zeldin said he doesn’t  “believe that religion should be used as the sole basis of denying someone entry into our country,” he went on to say, “I do believe it would be foolish to ignore religion in trying to assess a particular person and what their beliefs and motives are in applying for entry, especially where they may be coming from a country that we face more of a threat from, and also from a country where there’s less documentation because of instability.”

 Mr. Zeldin, like Mr. Trump, is critical of the Common Core educational standards, and an amendment to a federal education bill that allows states to opt out without penalty, which Mr. Zeldin sponsored, was signed into law in December.

Ms. Throne-Holst was outspoken about her view of Mr. Trump, saying she watched last week’s Republican National Convention “in horror.” Not only did the convention “take on this really horrifying message and approach,” based on appeals to fear and exclusion, she said, but “Lee Zeldin, unlike every other moderate Republican that has run in the other direction, was proud to be there with him.” Mr. Zeldin “makes no secret that he is proud to be aligned with Donald Trump as a friend and speak about his brand of political incorrectness being what America needs today,” she said.

Mr. Trump won nearly 73 percent of the vote in the Republican primary in the First District, but both candidates downplayed the significance of the primary.

“He clearly has a lot of support, throughout the First District and around the country, of Republicans as well as others who couldn’t vote in the primary on the Democratic side,” Mr. Zeldin said. “I would imagine that Mrs. Clinton is going to do better against Trump in East Hampton than, say, Smithtown. But there’s still a lot of time and some debates for people to make up their minds.”

For Ms. Throne-Holst the First Congressional District Republican primary showed that “Donald Trump is a New Yorker, after all.” Nor was Ms. Throne-Holst intensely interested in this week’s Democratic National Convention. Hillary Clinton “is the one that has the experience, and I think that will come across,” Ms. Throne-Holst said, “but I am focused first and foremost on my own race.”

 “As far as Mr. Trump versus Secretary Clinton,” Mr. Zeldin said, “it’s not close for me between the two of them. I don’t believe the country is looking for this opportunity to put the Clintons back into the White House. The American public doesn’t trust her, doesn’t believe that she is eager at all to challenge the status quo, to improve our country, and, in many respects, her campaign is about her wanting to be president rather than a dedicated commitment and inspiration to improving our country above all else.”

Asked about the Long Island Power Authority’s proposal for a wind farm in the ocean 30 miles east of Montauk, Ms. Throne-Holst said, “Alternative energy is the future of the country, and certainly of this district.” In Southampton, “We set in motion . . . a very successful, robust solarizing incentive program,” she said of an initiative that allows a pre-negotiated discounted rate for installation of solar systems.

The First District is “extremely well placed to be leaders” in renewable energy, she said. “We have abundant sunshine and wind. We’re surrounded by water. We can and should be leading the way on renewable energy. I think all of those alternatives should be both explored and put into good use.” She added, however, that fishing interests in offshore waters must be protected.

Offshore wind, Mr. Zeldin said, “is a potential to provide a positive benefit to our region, both economically and environmentally. There are people who strongly agree and others who strongly disagree, but I would never discount the potential for any type of a creative solution to be debated and considered to possibly improve our delivery of energy needs on Long Island.”

Although Ms. Throne-Holst argued that her opponent was a climate-change denier, Mr. Zeldin acknowledged that “the climate has been changing” but was noncommittal with respect to American efforts to combat it.

“We see evidence of it here around Long Island and particularly of the reality that it’s going to take more than an act of a County Legislature, State Legislature, or Congress. We really need more around the globe to pursue policies that are more environmentally friendly to protect not just their own countries but for countries to be able to protect each other.”

The Fight for Plum Island’s Future

The Fight for Plum Island’s Future

Tom Dwyer, a geologist who works for the Plum Island Animal Disease Center, showed aerial photos of the East End, including Plum Island, to children from John M. Marshall Elementary School during a 2015 field trip to the island.
Tom Dwyer, a geologist who works for the Plum Island Animal Disease Center, showed aerial photos of the East End, including Plum Island, to children from John M. Marshall Elementary School during a 2015 field trip to the island.
Christine Sampson
Preserving all or part of its 840 acres seems to have unanimous support
By
Christine Sampson

Seeking to stop the federal government from auctioning off Plum Island, the 840-acre island that lies off Orient Point on the North Fork, eight organizations and individuals have sued the Department of Homeland Security, which operates the animal disease center there, and the General Services Administration, which was directed by Congress in 2008 to sell the island to the highest bidder.

The plaintiffs alleged in a July 7 complaint that the government is violating its own laws, including the National Environmental Protection Act and Endangered Species Act, by pursuing the public sale of the island. They also say the agencies have not done a good enough job on a required environmental impact statement.

Nearly every town, state, and federal official on the East End has come out against the sale, including Representative Lee Zeldin, in whose district the island lies, and Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand. Mr. Zeldin was able recently to get two measures passed in the House to stop the sale and has called for the Senate to adopt similar legislation. 

“I am supportive of the local groups’ efforts and any efforts to prevent the sale of Plum Island,” Mr. Zeldin said in an email. “I will continue doing all that I can to ensure that we can pursue a better direction for Plum Island that would allow for continued research, public access, and permanent preservation of the island.”

While Mr. Zeldin’s House initiatives received bipartisan unanimous support, it is unclear who or what organizations may be supporting the sale. 

Others filing suit are Peconic Baykeeper, Soundkeeper Inc., the Connecticut Fund for the Environment, and Save the Sound, along with John Turner, a birder and environmental advocate, John Potter, the president of CT/RI Coastal Flyfishers, and Ruth Ann Bramson, a historian and co-author of “A World Unto Itself: The Remarkable History of Plum Island, New York.” Morrison & Foerster, a law firm based in New York and San Francisco, is representing them without charge.

“The government holds the wildlife and natural resources in public trust for the people, not the private gain of individual developers,” Roger Reynolds, legal director of the Connecticut Fund for the Environment and Save the Sound, said in a statement. “We are asking the court to halt any sale of Plum Island and to order the agencies to fully consider conserving the resources on the undeveloped portion of the island that does not support the research facility operations, whether through a conservation sale or outright protection.”

“The law says you have to define the level of potential environmental harm for what’s going to happen to that island when you sell it,” Bob DeLuca, president of the Group for the East End, one of the plaintiffs, said. “They put most of that review off until some later time,” he said. “The challenge is to overturn the federal decision to proceed until such time that those questions are answered.” 

Because of the security restrictions associated with animal disease research, the island has remained off-limits to the general public and largely untouched by development. The plaintiffs say the majority of the island has become “a de facto wildlife refuge” home to endangered species such as the roseate tern and to threatened species such as the piping plover. Harbor seals, grey seals, and endangered sea turtles are common visitors to the island and it is said to be the site of several rare plants.

When federal lawmakers directed the General Services Administration to sell Plum Island in 2008, they said it would offset the cost of building a new biological and agricultural research facility in Kansas as well as rehabilitating the island. Opponents of the sale have said the proceeds wouldn’t come close to what would be needed.

“It’s hard to find anybody with a passionate conviction to sell the island, but it got set in motion,” Mr. DeLuca said. “At this point it’s an act of Congress, so it’s not easy to find the off switch.”

Mr. DeLuca said that Plum Island is environmentally significant since it is in the Long Island Sound and Peconic estuaries and is also historically significant thanks to its lighthouse and the former Fort Terry.

“People think it’s just a laboratory, but only 10 to 15 percent is a laboratory. The rest of it is largely undisturbed. . . . Aside from perhaps Gardiner’s Island, you don’t really have any other place in our region with that many kinds of unique ecological elements all in one place.”

Wind Farm Delayed

Wind Farm Delayed

Meeting’s last-minute postponement troubles advocates
By
Christopher Walsh

A giant leap by the Long Island Power Authority toward a new energy infrastructure for the East End based on emission-free, renewable sources did not occur as expected yesterday, after the board of directors postponed a meeting at which it was to accept a proposal from Deepwater Wind, a Rhode Island company, to construct a 90-megawatt, 15-turbine wind farm in waters approximately 30 miles east of Montauk. The utility’s chief executive officer had recommended last week that the board accept the proposal. 

LIPA was also expected to announce a “demand response” program yesterday under which electricity consumers could temporarily reduce or deactivate high-consuming equipment during peak demand periods. The initiative was to call for two new battery storage facilities, which would be used during periods of peak demand.

Officials of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority asked LIPA’s board to delay the vote on the wind farm, according to a statement yesterday, “so the project can be examined in the broader context of the Offshore Wind Master Plan,” which the state authority is developing. A blueprint for that plan “will inform decisions about the best way to manage this valuable resource in an environmentally responsible way and in order to obtain the lowest achievable offshore wind electricity cost for New Yorkers,” the statement said. The blueprint is to be completed in the next few weeks.

The postponement was troubling to renewable energy and climate-change activists who had been cheered last week when Thomas Falcone, LIPA’s C.E.O., said the wind farm would be approved. “Every month that goes by without a decision on offshore wind and demand response programs, which would help reduce peak demand, means more diesel generators polluting the air, more diesel truck deliveries,” Gordian Raacke, executive director of Renewable Energy Long Island and a member of the Town of East Hampton’s energy sustainability advisory committee, said yesterday. “It’s a real problem.” However, if the delay amounts to a few weeks, “it’s no big deal,” he said. “But these things have a way of taking longer than we think.” 

A statement from Deepwater Wind yesterday expressed confidence that its proposed wind farm would “become a major part in meeting the State of New York’s ambitious goals.” The state’s Clean Energy Standard mandates that 50 percent of electricity come from clean and renewable sources by 2030. Deepwater Wind said it respected the decision to postpone the meeting and that it looked forward to working closely with the involved agencies as well as Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s administration. Deepwater Wind is now building a five-turbine wind farm that will provide power to Block Island. That installation is scheduled for completion this summer and to be in operation by year’s end. 

Before the postponement, Mr. Falcone said contract negotiations withDeepwater Wind, site assessments, and permitting were yet to be completed, but “the nice thing about this is it is using an existing federal lease area that has already been licensed and reviews done for conflicting resources like shipping lanes and fishing. It’s in good shape.”

 He said he hoped to complete a contract with Deepwater Wind by the first quarter of 2017 and that construction could begin in 2019. The wind farm, which would be over the horizon and out of view, could be online around December 2022, he said. 

The wind farm, which is designed to power some 50,000 residences, was to be the first phase of Deepwater ONE, which would produce up to 1,000 megawatts of electricity from additional turbines installed over a larger area in several stages. The electricity would connect to LIPA’s Amagansett substation via an undersea cable and from there to the East Hampton substation on Buell Lane Extension in East Hampton. “In fact,” Mr. Raacke said, “Deepwater Wind has offered to put an extra conduit in, which would enable PSEG to ‘underground’ the ugly transmission lines they put up last year.” PSEG Long Island manages the island’s electrical grid on behalf of LIPA.

Demand for electricity on the South Fork has far outpaced the rest of Long Island, with particularly high use in the summer and on weekends and holidays. Demand has also vastly outpaced population growth. Over the last decade, the number of residential accounts has grown by 4 percent, while the megawatt peak has grown by 44 percent, according to PSEG. Commercial accounts have grown by 12.3 percent over the same period.

Governor Cuomo, Mr. Raacke said yesterday, “has been very vocal on the need to do something about climate change, setting very ambitious goals — just like East Hampton — to switch to renewable energy sources, and that’s what we’re counting on.” Offshore wind, he said, “is going to be a big economic engine” for New York and the country. 

The East Hampton Town Board, which adopted a  plan calling for 100 percent of its electricity to come from renewable sources by 2020 and the equivalent of 100 percent consumption, including heating and transportation, by 2030, issued a statement last Thursday hailing LIPA’s expected approval of Deepwater Wind’s proposal.

 “Deepwater Wind’s project was an integral part of the town board’s plan when it unanimously adopted the town’s 100-percent renewable energy goals,” Supervisor Larry Cantwell said. “The town’s policy is paving the way for renewables, wind, solar, and conservation to become a real alternative to massive transmission lines and greenhouse-gas-emitting fossil fuels.”

Technological advances, the global growth of the industry, and American contractors’ increasing familiarity with offshore wind have brought costs to a point at which it is competitive with traditional, fossil fuel-based energy sources. “When we looked at the options and alternatives to meet the growing need in East Hampton and Southampton, it turns out this is the lowest-cost proposal,” Mr. Falcone said.

Not everyone has been supportive of the wind farm initiative, however. “There is absolutely nothing environmentally sound or safe about this project,” Bonnie Brady, executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, said last Thursday. Its construction would devastate important habitat areas and migration paths, she said. “If you want to call yourselves environmentally safe, it should be. . . . It’s very disheartening, and I’m very disappointed with the Town of East Hampton for not addressing it with the fishery communities.”

Mr. Falcone, however, said a multi-year environmental review of the site had been completed, with participation from fishing and shipping interests. “Having gone through the stakeholder process, there is always someone who is disappointed, but that said, you have an answer as to what has been determined to be the best use,” he said.

Mr. Raacke, who called the last-minute cancellation very odd, nevertheless said he was still optimistic that this is going to move forward.”

Five Elms Doomed, Others at Risk

Five Elms Doomed, Others at Risk

Elms line Main Street in East Hampton Village, but several have succumbed to a tree disease.
Elms line Main Street in East Hampton Village, but several have succumbed to a tree disease.
Carissa Katz
L.V.I.S. vigilant as Dutch elm strikes again
By
Joanne Pilgrim

The elm trees lining Main Street and scattered around East Hampton Village, perhaps a foundation of the village’s designation as one of the most beautiful little burgs in America, are aging and becoming more susceptible to disease. 

Several that have succumbed to Dutch elm disease have been taken down, and five more are presently due for the saw, despite the best efforts of the East Hampton Ladies Village Improvement Society, the 120-year-old institution that watches over and cares for the trees. Samples from close to a dozen more trees have been sent out for testing to see if they too have the disease, which killed a number of the village’s elms during nationwide epidemics in the ’70s and ’80s.

“We should know very soon,” said Olivia Brooks, who has headed the L.V.I.S. tree committee for a decade. “Dutch elm disease, we think, has come around again.”

One variety of American elm, called a Princeton elm, has been resistant to Dutch elm disease, she said. “Resistant, but not tolerant.” A Princeton elm growing at the sheepfold on Egypt Lane, near the Pantigo Road intersection, was only four or five years old, Ms. Brooks said, when it recently “all of a sudden turned yellow.” It had to be taken down. 

As with people, the trees weaken somewhat as they age, and their ability to ward off disease wanes. The so-called Baker elm, which grew near the Gardiner “Brown” House, on Main Street at the entrance to the parking lot, was likely more than 200 years old at the time of its demise in the 1990s. A table made from its wood by Phil Berg, a local woodworker, can be seen in the society’s bookstore, next to its thrift shop in the Gardiner “Brown” House. 

Other centuries-old trees, elms that have survived past disease outbreaks, are showing signs of distress and are being carefully monitored, Ms. Brooks said, to determine if their symptoms stem from advanced age, the effects of recent prolonged drought, or something more ominous.

But Dutch elm disease, which is believed to have been brought over, shipboard, from England, and has swept at times throughout the Northeast, can strike trees of any age. 

L.V.I.S. tree committee members are deployed in “street teams” to go into the field and inspect. According to Mary Fallon, the head tree protector on the elm task force, the new victims that will be removed soon are two trees on Meadow Way, called witch elms, and others on Main Street and Buell Lane. 

“It’s sad, because we’ve had some really good years,” she said. “It appears that the dryness from the last summers has taken its toll.”

The L.V.I.S. program of planting and maintaining trees dates back, Ms. Brooks said, to probably the 1920s. The tree committee, and its elm task force, works with the Village of East Hampton; they share the costs of tree care, including a fungicide treatment administered by Bartlett Tree Experts. 

Dutch elm disease can be transmitted by beetles that bore into tree bark and deposit the disease that they carry on their bodies, or underground through root systems, Deborah Green, a board-certified master arborist at Bartlett, explained recently. The roots “are, like, holding hands under there,” allowing disease to spread from tree to tree.

The fungicide treatment, administered to a third of the village’s elm trees each year on a cyclical protocol, can act as a preventative, or even a curative.

“If it’s an isolated tree that’s caught early on, you might be able to suppress the disease for awhile,” Ms. Green said. But success depends on the overall health of the tree. Those that are “really old — they’ve been on a downhill curve for many years. Then you throw drought in there, and other human factors. . . .” 

Driving over the tree roots can have a negative impact, and the L.V.I.S. worked with the village to enact a law requiring fencing around village trees near construction sites to protect them from trucks and other machinery. The society recently committed $153,300 to ongoing maintenance and planting of trees, and at a meeting earlier this month made the sad but necessary decision to budget $19,600 to remove the five known diseased elms.

Ms. Brooks, a lifelong East Hampton resident, waxed poetic about the elm trees. Some of the largest in the village are 150 to 200 feet tall. “They have those beautiful arms,” she said, that create an overhanging bower. “They just have a beautiful structure.”

Old postcards of East Hampton show a village of open spaces with few trees. “L.V.I.S. was really instrumental” in changing the streetscape, Ms. Brooks said. “The ladies really wanted the trees to be one of the greatest resources out here, besides the ocean.” The elms are particularly visible and stately, but maples were also planted, and a variety of specimen trees. 

Ms. Brooks has particularly enjoyed planting Princeton elms. “We have them dotted all over the village; I like the form of it,” she said. 

The L.V.I.S. maintains a database that identifies all the village trees, and has photographs as well of their memorial and dedication plaques, almost 100 of them to date.

Tainted Water: An East Magazine Special Report on Georgica Pond

Tainted Water: An East Magazine Special Report on Georgica Pond

Blue-green algae spreads into Georgica Cove.
Blue-green algae spreads into Georgica Cove.
Cleber Mello
By
Christopher Walsh

Jack Russell terriers are not water dogs. “She just happened to go down to the pond,” says Annie Gilchrist Hall, “because we had two of our kids here sailing.” Annie and John Hall’s pet was familiar with Georgica Pond, East Hampton’s serene, 290-acre body of water — a stunning backdrop to some of the most desirable real estate on the planet. The Halls live on the pond.

It was just after Labor Day in 2012. The little dog, Rosie, frolicked in the water, then licked her paws. Almost instantly “she went into neurotoxic shock,” Hall says. “It’s so graphic: She put her four legs out straight. She was breathing, but couldn’t move.”

Three days later, Rosie died. A tissue sample revealed toxic exposure to cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, microbes that produce dangerous neuro and gastro-intestinal poisons. With that, a realization came into focus: Inconceivably, Georgica was poisonous.

Blue-green algae has plagued the pond for a decade, but never to the extent it has in the last few years. In July 2014, when cyanobacteria bloomed anew in Georgica, masses of fish died off, and, according to some accounts, one or two deer. Within days — and at the height of the summer season — the East Hampton Town Trustees were forced to do the inconceivable: close the pond to swimming and wading, and shut down shellfishing and fishing. 

READ MORE

Six Montauk Businesses Cited for Selling Alcohol to Minors

Six Montauk Businesses Cited for Selling Alcohol to Minors

Salt Box was among the bars where East Hampton Town police paid a visit on Sunday.
Salt Box was among the bars where East Hampton Town police paid a visit on Sunday.
By
T.E. McMorrow

East Hampton Town police, in conjunction with the New York State Liquor Authority, conducted a plain-clothes enforcement effort Sunday in Montauk that snared four bars and two retail shops that police said sold alcoholic beverages to minor. According to East Hampton Town Police Chief Michael Sarlo, the four bars were La Brisa, Salt Box, Grey Lady, and Swallow East. The retail stores were Bliss and Montauk Market.

The chief said a 19-year-old was sent into the establishments as part of the undercover operation. The businesses cited all sold the teen alcohol without asking for ID. The six who actually conducted the transactions, which are misdemeanors under state law, were Elijah Ruben, 21, of Montauk, Brian D. Morris, 46, whose year round address is in Manhattan, Katherine A. Kinneary, 25, of Amagansett, Ian Hunt, 40, of East Hampton, Barora Nachthanova, 21, of Montauk, and a 17-year-old from Montauk. They all will be arraigned in East Hampton Town Justice Court at a later date.

The chief made note of the fact that two of those charged were 21, and a third a minor. "Businesses need to take more time to train and supervise their employees when alcohol is being served. We are always willing to work with the businesses and help out training staff on ID checking," he said. "We will continue to be proactive in looking for these violations throughout town." 

Woman Airlifted After Crash With Propane Truck

Woman Airlifted After Crash With Propane Truck

A Suffolk County medevac helicopter picked up a woman who was seriously injured in an accident in Montauk on Friday afternoon.
A Suffolk County medevac helicopter picked up a woman who was seriously injured in an accident in Montauk on Friday afternoon.
Tycho Burwell photos
By
Taylor K. Vecsey

A woman was airlifted to Stony Brook University Hospital Friday afternoon following an automobile accident at the intersection of Montauk Highway and Old Montauk Highway in Montauk. 

Ed Ecker, the public information officer for the Montauk Fire Department, said the woman's vehicle was turning from Old Montauk Highway onto Montauk Highway when it was clipped by an eastbound propane truck. The accident occured at 3:53 p.m. 

"She had significant injuries," Mr. Ecker said, though he said she was conscious and alert. The Montauk Fire Department's ambulance company treated her and called a Suffolk County Police medevac helicopter to take her to Stony Brook University Hospital, the nearest level-one trauma center. It landed in a town-owned field in Amagansett. 

A second ambulance took another person involved in the accident to Southampton Hospital. 

Although traffic was rerouted for a short period, it was "backed up quite a bit east and west," according to Mr. Ecker, who was among the department's fire police officers directing traffic off Montauk Highway.

East Hampton Town police are investigating the accident. No further information was immediately available.

Bail Set at $11K For Former Bonac Football Star

Bail Set at $11K For Former Bonac Football Star

Joseph R. Dowling
Joseph R. Dowling
EHTPD
By
T.E. McMorrow

Joseph R. Dowling, 24, of Sag Harbor, a former star player for the East Hampton High School football team, was arraigned in Sag Harbor Village Justice Court Saturday morning on two felony charges, possession of heroin with an intent to sell and making an actual sale and possession of more than half an ounce of the narcotic.

He had been arrested Friday by detectives with East Hampton Town police, who said Mr. Dowling sold the drug to an undercover agent. He was also charged with a misdemeanor, possession of a hypodermic needle.

Justice Lisa R. Rana entered a denial to the felony charges, and a not guilty plea to the misdemeanor.

Mr. Dowling's mother was in the courtroom, tears in her eyes. When Justice Rana set bail at $11,000, the mother softly said, "Oh my God."

In addition to the charges he is now facing, Mr. Dowling will likely be charged with violating the terms of probation, opening the door to a possible re-sentencing on October 2014 charges.

In 2014, he was also charged with possession with intent to sell and possession of heroin at the felony level. The arrest was made in October 2014 after a high-speed chase at speeds of over 100 miles per hour on Route 114, with police finally tackling and subduing him in some woods near Swamp Road, after he abandoned the late-model Mazda he was driving. Besides the two felony charges in 2014, he was also charged with seven misdemeanors, and nine moving violations.

After that arrest, he was allowed to enter a drug treatment program. Eighteen months later, on Feb. 4 of this year, the district attorney's office dropped all charges except for two misdemeanors. He was allowed to plead guilty to criminal possession of a controlled substance and resisting arrest. He was sentenced to three years probation.

Correction: Joseph Dowling's arrest in 2014 was the result of a patrol investigation, not an undercover drug operation.