The Montauk Beach House may have the right to run a poolside bar and gift shop, but before it can do so legally, it needs approval from the East Hampton Town Planning Board, and on April 3, board members were full of questions about how the two amenities play into Chris Jones and Larry Siedlick’s overall plan for their downtown resort.

    “Exactly who is using the pool?” Ian Calder-Piedmont, a board member, asked the owners’ attorney, Andy Hammer of Biondo and Hammer. “I understand there are memberships that have been sold. Does that change things? Whether it is for a guest of the resort, or a guest of the guest, or somebody who is not staying there, and has somehow gotten permission to get inside. That makes a difference. There has to be a line drawn somewhere, that anybody operating a resort can’t just open a bar to anyone off the street,” he said.

    In addition to renting its hotel rooms, the Beach House, which opened last summer, offers membership for the season for $1,100, entitling people to a lounge at the pool with up to three guests at preferred times, according to its Web site. There’s a discount for “locals,” who can join for only $750 (“proof of residence required”). A daily membership is $50. Rooms at the hotel range from $299 to $399 in the off-season up to $459 to $679 for a Saturday night in July.

    Montauk nightlife, especially during the 2012 season, became a “hot-button issue,” said Reed Jones, the board’s chairman. “You make it sound very calm and easy, and maybe I’m at the pool and I can go get a cocktail and everything’s great, but how do you keep that boxed in, as opposed to this thing becoming the newest hotspot?” he asked Mr. Hammer.

    “I would like more detail in regard to the structures and a better narrative on how it will work,” said Nancy Keeshan, a board member whose real estate office is also in downtown Montauk. “I know [the store sells] more than a toothbrush, so I’d like to know the details.”

    Mr. Siedlick told the board that the owners want success, but not an excess of success. “We would destroy our own business if we let it get to that level,” he said. Two things, he said, will prevent the business from spiraling out of control: “One is that the crowd is controlled, and two is that the noise level disappears as the sun goes down.”

    Mr. Hammer, at one point, called the Beach House a “family oriented place.”

    The resort’s Web site describes it as “a hotel with an active environment — both day and night — that encompasses a private membership beach club and a lively outdoor bar scene within its grounds. The summer season is booked with special events including D.J.s, live music, fashion shows, and other like-minded social gatherings with one common goal: a bit of serious fun.”

    It continues: “So if you are looking for a serene, tranquil — and boring — environment, may we kindly suggest that the Montauk Beach House might not be for you.”

    The motel, formerly the Ronjo, could not be built today on its current site, just south of the Plaza, because that area is now zoned as a downtown business district, with hotels prohibited. But it can continue to operate as a hotel because its original construction predates current zoning.

    After a Feb. 5 public hearing, the zoning board of appeals reversed a ruling by Tom Preiato, the town’s chief building inspector, that said the poolside bar and gift shop on the site were prohibited uses, then upheld his determination that both had been substantially altered or rebuilt, meaning that each structure would have to undergo a site plan review before the planning board, which is where the Beach House now finds itself.

    From the beginning of the discussion last week, board members, as well as the applicants themselves, seemed a bit uncertain as to what they were supposed to debate.

    A memo written by Eric Schantz, a planner with the Town Planning Department, said that it was difficult for the department to determine “what regulations/standards of the town code will be applicable” to the current application.

    Mr. Schantz expressed concern in the memo that the “applicability of parking requirements is significant, in that the additional 210 square feet of retail would require two additional spaces, and the addition of a ‘tavern or bar’ would require two spaces for every three persons of rated capacity.”

    However, the board appeared to be dissuaded from following that line of questioning, in part by instructions from Kathryn Santiago, the board’s attorney, who seemed to say that because the structures were not an expansion of use, the board did not need to consider the parking issues Mr. Schantz had raised in his memo.

    It was the structures themselves, not the use of the structures, that the board was to consider, she told Pat Schutte, when he requested guidance.

    Ms. Santiago said on Monday that she was researching the issue, and would prepare the board a memo on what exactly needed to be addressed in the current site plan review.

    Mr. Hammer seemed prepared on April 3 to discuss the parking issue at length, referencing the Ross School’s construction of a tennis court and training facility in East Hampton, with additional parking added by the school on its own initiative.

    The board will continue the discussion on the bar and gift shop, but it concluded a separate site plan review relating to construction of a barbecue pit and trellis on April 3. The board received one letter in opposition, from Zachary Cohen, who charged that the multiplicity of site plan review applications from the resort’s owners was “segmentation,” which would not be allowed under the State Environmental Quality Review Act.

    Ms. Santiago told the board that such was not the case and the board agreed 6-0 last week, with Bob Schaeffer absent, that the plan was ready for approval. A formal vote on that element will come by the end of the month.

    Members of the East Hampton Town Police Department have been working without a contract since Jan. 1, and according to Joseph Fallacara, president of the town Police Benevolent Association, the two sides have a way to go before an agreement can be reached.

    “We’ve had three meetings so far,” he said on Friday, which have not been productive. “We’ve filed for mediation.”

    Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson declined to comment, saying he believed it best not to negotiate through the press.

    If nothing happens in mediation, the next step is arbitration, in which the P.B.A. and the town each select candidates from a list provided by the American Arbitrators Association, searching for one arbitrator they can agree on.

    According to the town’s current 2013 budget, most police officers earn about $104,000 a year plus benefits, with sergeants, lieutenants, detectives, and the department’s captain making more, and officers with lesser tenure making less. The only member of the force not covered by a P.B.A. contract is its chief, Edward Ecker.

    “We’re not in agreement on wages and benefits,” Mr. Fallacara said, while stressing there was more to the situation than that, including “job safety and staffing.”

    One area that officers across the force feel strongly about is scheduling, Mr. Fallacara said. Currently, as with a number of police forces across the country, officers rotate through three time-slotted shifts in a 20-day cycle. Uniformed officers work four consecutive day shifts, starting at 7 a.m. and running to about 3 p. m., followed by one day off. They then work five consecutive afternoon shifts, starting at about 3 and ending at about 11 p.m. After two consecutive days off, they finish out the rotation, working the night shift, starting at 11 p.m. and running to 7 a. m. Finally, they have four straight days off — but, because the first day starts the moment they finish their last nightshift, they effectively have only three, Mr. Fallacara said.

    “The divorce rate with regular civilians is 55 percent. With cops, it’s about 90 percent,” said the P.B.A. chief. “It takes a year off your life each year you do it.”

    Asserting that “most police departments don’t run that [schedule] anymore,” he said the New York City force now assigns officers set schedules instead. “We’ve offered to split the cost” of research leading to a better scheduling system, he said, and “We have presented different schedules that will save the town money.”

    Whether in the area of safety or scheduling or salary or benefits, Mr. Fallacara said the negotiations will all come down to money. The town is “always trying to cut back,” he said. As examples, he added, three officers retired at the end of 2012 but only two new ones were brought on board this year, while four officers who were recently promoted have not yet been replaced in the field. “We have a real shortfall in the street,” he said.

     “Police services are a necessary cost to the community,” said Mr. Fallacara. “People want police protection. When you go to work putting on a bullet-proof vest, you need to be paid.”

    While Mr. Wilkinson may have to wrestle with what could be difficult negotiations, East Hampton Village officials will have no such worries. The village P.B.A. is under contract through July 31, 2015.

    However, things are not so rosy in Sag Harbor, where the 11 officers on the force have been working without a contract for the past three years. One officer left the force several months ago and has not been replaced, and the village board has been threatening to eliminate yet another officer.

    East Hampton Town and Village are perhaps the only local governments in the country to have incorporated the requirements of the federal Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 into their codes.

    Access has been improved in public places, but the Parks Department has more to do, and local businesses need to start conforming to the dictates of the A.D.A.’s “readily achievable” mandate, that is, requiring improvements to help the handicapped that can be made, within reason, according to Glenn Hall, a member of East Hampton Disabilities Advisory Board.

    The village has given the job of inspecting businesses to code enforcement officers and the inspections will begin soon. The town was looking to the fire marshal’s office to do the inspections, but that department does not have the manpower or budget to handle the job.

    East Hampton’s Disabilities Advisory Board serves both the town and the village. It was created as the Handicapped Advisory Committee in the 1970s at the suggestion of former state assemblyman John Behan of Montauk. In a recent interview, Mr. Hall said that while the town incorporated the federal mandates and used them to improve accessibility early on, its inability to follow through, to finish creating “a level playing field, to remove barriers and give equal access” was a political failure of major proportions, one that has affected all of the town’s departments.

    Dominick Stanzione, town councilman and liaison to the disabilities board, said on Tuesday that although it was true the town’s departments were strapped, “I’d say that’s a national problem, not an East Hampton problem. We didn’t have a capital budget in three years due to the fiscal emergency. Now that we’ve had substantial progress righting the fiscal ship, there’s no way of escaping criticism. We can understand how it’s not satisfying to advocates.”

    Mr. Stanzione said there was between $15,000 and $30,000 in the current budget for mailings to businesses advising them of their A.D.A. obligations, and that the town board had worked to waive fees for business owners making A.D.A.-related improvements.

    “As we develop our next budget we have now created a line item for A.D.A. compliance. Our capital budget contains money for making town facilities, parks compliant. The readily achievable issue deals with minor things. Unfortunately, the fire marshal is understaffed.” By bringing the federal A.D.A. law into the town code, Mr. Stanzione said, “the town placed a burden on ourselves. . . . We are now struggling in a positive way to achieve those goals.”

    Mr. Hall stressed that the town’s obligations to the A.D.A. were not part of an informal wish list but were legal requirements. He recalled that it was obstacles preventing disabled people, including himself, from enjoying a movie at the East Hampton theater that prompted former town supervisor Jay Schneiderman to suggest that the town and village absorb the federal law.

    “Village police could not enforce federal law. We would have had to go to federal court. We did it with public opinion instead,” Mr. Hall said. It took a couple years for the town attorney’s office to incorporate the A.D.A. into the town code, Mr. Hall said.

    The A.D.A. requires that all new construction of public buildings include things that have become standard, such as doors requiring no more than five pounds of pull to open, hand railings in rest rooms, wheelchair ramps, etc. Older buildings that are renovated must comply as though they were new, “within reason,” Mr. Hall said. The “grandfathered concept” — buildings constructed before passage of the A.D.A. — also fall under the law’s “readily achievable” sections.

    “Now all those rules are enforceable by the town and village. All municipalities receive federal money. They have been required to abide by the A.D.A. since ’05. They have no choice,” Mr. Hall said.        

    No choice, perhaps, but in the town’s case, no money either. “The cost of readily achievable is not much. It’s a fixed number, and it’s not ongoing,” Mr. Hall said, explaining that the fixes themselves were often not expensive, and once done, they’re done.

    If an inspection finds an obstacle to access and a business believes correcting it would be a financial hardship the law includes an appeals process. From the municipalities’ point of view the expense comes from the initial inspections and follow-ups.

    The disabilities advisory board has tried to urge the inspection system forward with a “referral form,” Mr. Hall said, “a one-pager that inspectors can use to point out noncompliance: no handicapped parking, sidewalks that are not level, no curb cuts, etc.” The forms, filled out and given to various departments, have been working, Mr. Hall said. “One by one things get done, but the goal is not piecemeal. That’s not the way. It’s time to obey the law. We’re now looking for a way to inspect.”

    East Hampton Village is ready and able. In the next few months, the village’s businesses will receive a letter from the administration outlining the readily achievable goal, and they will get a personal letter from the advisory board explaining how important the improvements will be to disabled residents. Larry Cantwell, the village administrator, said on Tuesday that the inspections would be undertaken by the village’s office of code enforcement.

    The town is another story, Mr. Hall said, a sad tale that began with the loss of advocates for the disabled due to financial missteps made during former supervisor Bill McGintee’s administration and subsequent budget cuts made by his successor, Bill Wilkinson and the town board’s Republican majority.

    Pete Hammerle, the town board’s liaison to the disabilities board during the McGintee and early Wilkinson years, showed up for meetings “maybe once or twice,” Mr. Hall said. Edna Steck, former director of the town’s Human Services Department, “who was valuable to the advisory board,” took an early retirement offered as a cost-cutting measure. Richard Rosenthal, the town’s part-time disabilities officer, lost his job due to the budget crunch.

    Mr. Hall said that during a meeting a year ago with Patrick Gunn, assistant town attorney in charge of the division of public safety, members of the advisory committee were told the departments simply did not have the money take on the inspections. 

    “We are left with no one connecting us to the town board. We shouldn’t be begging. Our job is to advise on how to comply with the law. Normally the liaison would take our suggestions to town and move forward. The problem is, we have not moved forward because of budgetary constraints. It’s been five years of not making town readily accessible to the disabled.”

    “In the past, we have had to make a public spectacle like at Guild Hall, the Bank of New York, Nick and Toni’s,” Mr. Hall said referring to a number of civil actions to force compliance in East Hampton. “To have to resort to shaming people is really sad.”

    Just how far the town board can, or should, go to help a local business grow is the subject of yet another developing disagreement among East Hampton officials.

    The founders of the Montauk Brewing Company, three East Hampton High School graduates, have set up a storefront and tasting room in Montauk, on South Erie Avenue just across from the baseball field, and have been working to promote their signature brew, called Driftwood Ale, and other offerings.

    The beer has been brewed at an upstate contract brewery, but the beer entrepreneurs, Vaughan Cutillo, Eric Moss, and Joe Sullivan, plan to install brewing equipment in Montauk to make the beer on site.

    When they went to the planning board for site plan approval, however, they learned that the addition would trigger a requirement to provide three more parking spaces on the site. With no room on the property to add them, they were told that they could, instead, pay fees in lieu of providing the parking spaces — $15,000 per spot — that the town collects in a fund earmarked for the creation of municipal parking in central business zones where property owners cannot provide the parking that is required for a particular business.

    Paying a $45,000 fee, the Montauk brewers have said, would be an impediment. “It’s an enormous expense so far,” Mr. Cutillo said Tuesday, calling the brewery a “boot-strap” business.

    The three owners had appealed to the town board several months ago to allow them to use nearby municipal parking, at no cost, to fulfill the additional parking requirement.

    The situation is unique, Mr. Cutillo said this week, because of the brewery’s proximity to the public lot by the ball field — which, he said, is not used to capacity. “We’ve had overwhelming support from the community,” he said of the start-up.

    At a town board meeting last Thursday night, Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc sponsored a resolution proposing what he saw as a solution to the business’s dilemma, allowing them to amortize the $45,000 fee over a period of years to be determined by the planning board, so as to spread the financial impact over time.

    The town board, he said this week, does not have the authority to waive the fees, releasing a particular business from an obligation to abide by the town code.

    “Why can’t we just accommodate them and let them use the parking spaces and waive the fee?” Supervisor Bill Wilkinson asked last Thursday. “It’s not a generic retail application. It’s something unique.”

    “Is there a fair process for doing that?” Councilman Van Scoyoc asked. “I feel that this is a way, through the existing process, to help them open up their business,” he said of his proposal. Should the board believe the parking fees are unfair, “let’s talk about a code change,” he said, rather than make an exception for one applicant. “It’s called a process that’s fair,” he said.

    “We as a town have been unfair to constituents for 30 years,” said Councilwoman Theresa Quigley, She had prepared a resolution of her own, authorizing a license agreement with the brewers that would allow them to use the three public parking spaces. 

    Both resolutions were tabled after it became clear that the board was in a familiar deadlock, with Mr. Van Scoyoc and his fellow Democratic board member, Sylvia Overton, on one side, Ms. Quigley and Mr. Wilkinson on the other, and Councilman Dominick Stanzione, elected on the Republican slate, remaining mum on the issue.

    Mr. Wilkinson then turned to John Jilnicki, the town attorney. “Can I waive these fees tonight, John?” he asked.

    “There’s no provision in the code to waive the fees,” Mr. Jilnicki replied. “You’d be subject to challenge if you did that.”

    Ms. Quigley pointed out that the board does waive fees for site plan applications and building permits.

    She claimed that the town has never used any of the money collected for the parking fund — a total of $81,109 since April 1994. “I don’t understand the purpose of this fee. In 20 years we’ve done nothing with the fee other than punish people.”

    “Perhaps we should start using it,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said. “We have a system; it’s structured in a certain way. I think it’s completely unfair to waive the fees for one individual business when we have these regulations in place and everyone prior . . . has had to comply.”

    “As far as I’m concerned, the world is structured to make accommodations for people who don’t have money,” Ms. Quigley replied.

    Before forwarding the matter for the town board’s decision, the planning board had a similar discussion at a meeting in January. Several expressed support for the fledgling company and interest in helping them. But several warned about bending the rules.

    “I can name 10 other applicants who had to pay into it,” said Patrick Schutte, a planning board member, about the municipal parking fund. “I don’t think that legally we can do that, the town board can do that. I don’t think the town board or we can grant an easement on this,” he said.

    “If we did it for this business, then we’d have to do it for anybody near municipal parking,” Ian Calder-Piedmonte said at the time.

    “We’re thrilled the town’s even willing to work with us, as a small business,” Mr. Cutillo said Tuesday. “I do understand there’s a bigger picture here.”

    For the time being, he said, Montauk Brewing’s custom equipment is on hold. Setting up a bonafide brewery has been a “pretty massive project,” he said, stretching over three years. Installing the brewing equipment will take another six to eight months, he said, once the business somehow gets a green light from the town.

    Mr. Cutillo said he holds out hope that he can avoid paying the fee. “I hope they can come to some agreement,” he said. “I’m going to be working very hard to move this forward.”

    Edward Orr, the Montauk man accused of the hit-and-run death of John Judge of Amagansett on the hamlet’s Main Street last October, then driving east without stopping, pleaded guilty last week in Suffolk County Supreme Court to leaving the scene of a fatal accident, a Class D felony, as well as tampering with evidence, a Class E felony.

    The plea, which Mr. Orr’s attorney, Gordon Ryan,  stressed on Tuesday had not been negotiated, was accepted in Justice William J. Condon’s chambers by Ian Fitzgerald, an assistant district attorney who works out of the new Vehicular Bureau of the Suffolk District Attorney’s Office. “There was no bargaining,” Mr. Ryan, a Montauk lawyer, said. He explained that he had consulted with Mr. Orr and said the evidence against him was “insurmountable.” He wanted “to get him into state prison as soon as possible,” he said, so that he can start serving his time.

    According to Mr. Ryan, Justice Condon had asked Mr. Fitzgerald what the people were thinking of in the way of sentencing. “Two to six years,” the assistant district attorney responded. Mr. Ryan declined to make a counter request. Sentencing is scheduled for April 24. Class D felonies are punishable by up to seven years in prison.

    “The system failed before and it is failing again,” Allison Lupo said Monday before leading a brief vigil in the wintry weather that night within feet of where Mr. Judge died. The group is asking for justice for Mr. Judge, which they think requires a much longer sentence. “I don’t understand why the district attorney would make [that] offer,” Ms. Lupo said.

    Commenting on the prison term, Mr. Ryan said, “The system is not going to do any favors for this guy. I would guess he’ll end up doing four to five years,” he said, adding, “His record is going to haunt him, and the gravity of what happened is going to haunt him,” when he comes up for parole in the future.

    Robert Clifford, the district attorney’s spokesman, did not return calls seeking comment on the suggested length of sentence.

    Mr. Ryan said Mr. Orr had thought he hit a deer when he struck and killed Mr. Judge shortly before 8 p.m. on Oct. 23. He said his client didn’t learn Mr. Judge had been killed until the next morning, when he heard a news account on the radio. Mr. Ryan added that his client ran because he has a criminal record and was frightened of the consequences.

    Mr. Orr gave police a detailed, five-page statement after being brought to East Hampton Town Police headquarters on Feb. 7, following an intensive search for the hit-and-run driver. The statement has not been released.

    Police had closed Montauk Highway for seven hours following the incident, combing the roadway for evidence that might lead to the driver. Three months later, they linked debris to a 2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee in a New Jersey auction lot. Combined with cellphone records, they brought in Mr. Orr for questioning.

    “He did not cause the accident,” Mr. Ryan said, pointing out that the car was not swerving and apparently was in the correct lane when it struck Mr. Judge. “Everybody assumes [Mr. Orr] was intoxicated. I’ve got drug tests that says he was clean,” Mr. Ryan added. Mr. Orr had been attending counseling sessions at Phoenix House, an East Hampton rehabilitation center, which included periodic drug testing. The drug tests from Phoenix House will be presented to Justice Condon before sentencing.

    However, Mr. Ryan said that contrary to published reports, Mr. Orr had not been drug-tested between late September and the night he killed John Judge in October.

    Mr. Orr’s criminal record includes a 2009 conviction for embezzling $36,000 from a company for which he was a bookkeeper. It was a Class D felony, the same level as the more serious of the two crimes he pleaded guilty to last week. Justice Condon was on the bench at that time as well.

    The previous year, he had been convicted of two misdemeanors, the result of two different charges: fleeing a police officer and aggravated driving while intoxicated.

    Mr. Orr told the police in 2009 that he had been stealing to feed his cocaine and liquor habit. He was sentenced to probation with strict requirements: “Refrain from violating any federal, state, or local law; Avoid injurious or vicious habits; Abstain from the use of intoxicating beverages.”

    In November 2011, however, Mr. Orr was charged in an attack on his father, with choking as a felony, according to court documents. The incident arose after his father had reported that his son had been drinking heavily. The case was plea-bargained down in February 2012 to a violation, in part because of the reluctance of the senior Mr. Orr to press charges. The younger Mr. Orr admitted having four shots of vodka and taking Xanax shortly before the midday attack.

    He pleaded guilty on Feb. 8 to violating probation, and Justice Condon put off sentencing until November to allow him time to attend drug treatment programs. Standing before Justice Condon for sentencing on Nov. 13, Mr. Orr knew, according to his subsequent statement to police, that he had killed a man three weeks earlier but said nothing. Justice Condon restored Mr. Orr’s probation status, extending its time until June 2015.

    “Last year, the judge didn’t have hundreds of people signing petitions, saying please, please, take action,” Ms. Lupo said. Her husband, Tony Lupo, met John Judge 42 years ago, in Hampton Bays. The two became lifelong friends. “Somebody is getting something,” he said.

    Ms. Lupo plans to attend the sentencing next month, along with her family. “John has nobody to speak for him,” she said. “He just has us.”

    Lazy Point is the homey community of cottages on Napeague overlooking Gardiner’s Bay that for a few hundred years has lived up to its languorous name — a place that time passed by. That is, until now, in the opinion of the East Hampton Town Trustees, who have owned and managed the land there since the 17th century.

    Members of the nine-member panel established in 1686 to govern the English settlers have begun to sense ambition creeping among the houses at the same time that Gardiner’s Bay rises toward them.

    As a result, unauthorized seawalls have begun to sprout, as have decks, fences, as well as second stories. Stephanie Forsberg, Nat Miller, and Stephen Lester, trustees who make up the Lazy Point committee, are urging the board to take steps to tighten its oversight.

    According to trustee records, sachems of three separate Indian factions sold Lazy Point to English settlers on April 29, 1648. Today, the relationship between the 50 Lazy Point residents and the land is unique, especially in the Hamptons, home to some of the most expensive real estate in the country. Residents own their houses but not the land under them. They pay taxes on their houses, but lease the land from the trustees.

    In January, when the trustees passed their annual resolutions, the lease rate was raised from $1,000 per year to $1,500. The increase — a pittance when compared to rentals anywhere else in the Hamptons, trustees and lessees agree — will be used to tidy up Lazy Point.

    The trustees admit they have been consumed of late by other important matters, such as dealing with serious erosion on the ocean beaches they own and manage on behalf of the East Hampton public, as well as defending those same beaches from encroachment by beachfront property owners. In the meantime, Lazy Point has gotten the lead out, and that’s a problem, as the trustees see it.

    “What’s been happening the last couple of years, one homeowner wanted to relocate a house, another wanted to raise her house,” Diane McNally, the trustees’ presiding officer, said, referring to Eileen Raffo, a resident.

    Lowering and repainting an objectionable fence is one thing, but regulating the community’s affairs can involve potential confrontations with the East Hampton Town Board and the State Department of Environmental Conservation.

    For instance, Ms. Raffo was recently brought on the carpet for first building a seawall without trustee permission, and then — after the trustees discovered the wall — raising it higher. She told the trustees she’d been given permission to do so by the D.E.C., whose authority the trustees do not recognize.

    During their meeting of April 23, 2012, trustees informed Ms. Raffo she had compiled the most number of violations in Lazy Point history and was in danger of having her lease revoked. She has since removed the offending structures.

    Some Lazy Point residents, especially those living on Shore Road closest to Gardiner’s Bay, may be looking to raise their houses off the ground, but how high, if at all?

    Earlier hurricanes caused the Federal Emergency Management Agency to write new guidelines related to structures built in flood zones. Should a homeowner want to expand a dwelling by 50 percent, or increase its value by the same amount, it would have to be raised 12 feet above mean high tide. Megastorm Sandy reinforced the desire to escape skyward, but one person’s escape is another’s blocked view. High-rise cottages would also change the personality of the place.

    Keeping Lazy Point lazy has the potential of putting the trustees in conflict with both federal standards and the town’s zoning board of appeals should the town board adopt the federal standard. “They may feel obligated to follow the guidelines. The trustees have leeway. We’re the owners of the land, but they may feel differently,” Ms. McNally said.

    The possibility that trustees will have to defend what they see as the special authority given them by colonial patent to be both owners and legislators of what’s done on public property — proprietary powers that supercede town and state law — is an ever-present concern.

    In the meantime, trustees say they will focus on convincing residents they mean business when it comes to obtaining permits for any alteration of structure or erosion control.

    “One homeowner had the yard filled with landscaping material. They said they were going to plant it, but it became clear they were using the lot for storage. There’s storage of old boats and trap stakes on unleased lots. Decking is going on, driveways are being regraded. Use becomes abuse. The rules and regulations are clear. You need a permit if you’re doing anything different. Residents have to realize they are on public property,” Ms. McNally said.

The Peconic Institute, a not-for-profit dedicated to environmental sustainability and resiliency, will hold a launch conference on April 19 at 10 a.m. at the Avram Theater on the Stony Brook Southampton campus. The conference is free and open to the public, and a fund-raiser will follow at Southampton Publick House.

A key component of the institute’s mission is its climate resilience and recovery program, which would “advance systems and knowledge on the science and engineering of resilience and sustainability for preparedness, response, and recovery from extreme climate,” according to its Web site, as well as integration of this knowledge into education, training, and application.

“There needs to be a communal interest housed at that campus to serve as a connector to the community,” said John Botos, the executive director of the institute, which will be housed in the on-campus library. The organization is in the formative stage of defining itself, he said, but resilience and sustainability — or “retrosilience” — will be a key theme. It will offer fellowship opportunities for college and high school students, details of which will be unveiled at the launch conference.

“We are looking to be a one-stop for environmental needs, providing access to information 24 hours a day, 7 days a week,” said Mr. Botos. “We’re trying to reinvigorate the campus, serving as a hub of knowledge to local businesses and individuals, and taking it one step further to municipalities.”

There are opportunities for cleaner, greener communities, he said. “They’re looking for new innovative ideas of how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

The climate resilience and recovery program, said Frank Dalene of the institute, resulted from the establishment of the Hamptons Green Alliance, an association of South Fork building and related-service professionals that collectively promote green building practices. That group took on a project, the reconstruction of a fire-damaged house in Water Mill, that aimed to achieve three goals: net-zero energy consumption, carbon neutrality, and LEED Platinum certification.

That project, Mr. Dalene said, provided abundant research and development opportunities, and he was invited to submit a paper to the American Institute of Physics Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy detailing his findings. His paper, “Technology and Information Management for Low-Carbon Building,” was peer-reviewed and published last year.

Mr. Dalene’s work and that of the Hamptons Green Alliance has been merged with the Peconic Institute. “The idea is to leverage what we did with the Hamptons Green Alliance, the lessons learned, how we were able to measure and analyze what we did, and raise the bar for our next project,” he said. “We want to provide the ‘how’ in resiliency, how a resilient building is built. We want to look at everything from infrastructure to natural systems. The two are interconnected.”

The new institute will also collaborate with Brookhaven National Laboratory, he said, to refine the definition of resiliency. “Right now, we’re defining it as a building that’s LEED Platinum Plus, the ‘plus’ being resilience, something that goes beyond sustainability,” Mr. Dalene said.

Despite the still fresh and visible effects of Superstorm Sandy, the idea that climate change is a real, man-made phenomenon remains controversial in this country. “When I speak in other countries, they accept the fact that climate change is man-made,” said Mr. Dalene. “Here, there is this problem, but we’re saying right now, and want to say in the Peconic Institute, that it doesn’t matter what the cause is. What’s indisputable is that ocean temperatures are increasing . . . there will be sea level rise. With our coastlines on the East End, we’re ground zero, the epicenter.”

Consequently, he said, proactive planning for resilience and recovery is essential, given predictions of more frequent, and more violent, extreme weather events. “In preparedness, you cut the time of recovery, the cost, the cost of human life. These go hand in hand. When buildings are destroyed, we want to build them better so they can withstand the next storm.” To that end, the program will develop and test materials and practices that will make buildings stronger and more resilient.

The Peconic Institute also intends to serve as a conduit between regions as close as the North and South Forks and as distant as the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. “In other parts of the world, they’re dealing with similar issues,” Mr. Dalene said. “If we can all work together, we can find solutions and solve these problems. It’s about being proactive.”

Mr. Botos said he was sure that the institute will succeed, and has identified numerous funding opportunities. The launch conference, he said, is about “letting the public know who we are and what we do. We’re confident the public will see the value of the institute. We will be successful.”

     An employee carrying much of the holiday weekend’s cash in a bank-drop bag was robbed at gunpoint by another man Saturday night in the parking lot behind the I.G.A. on North Main Street in East Hampton, Detective Lt. Chris Anderson of the East Hampton Town police said Monday.

     According to the East Hampton Town call log for the day, the call was received at 10:19 p.m.

     The assailant was described as “a black male, in his 20s, short in stature.” He was said to be wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt, and had a Jamaican accent.

     When confronted with the gun, the employee briefly resisted, but the assailant gained control of the bank bag and ran down Collins Avenue toward Accabonac Road, jumped into a dark sedan, which then sped away, headed “south on Accabonac, toward 27,” Detective Anderson said. Police believed the assailant was headed west, likely with someone else driving.

     While there are no visible surveillance cameras in the back parking lot of the I.G.A., which is used by both the public and employees, there are numerous surveillance cameras in the vicinity, and East Hampton Village police headquarters is just a hundred or so yards away. The quirky boundary line between town and village in the North Main Street area places the I.G.A. in the town’s jurisdiction, with the village beginning on the opposite side of the street.

     The detective would not comment on whether the police believe the crime to be an inside job, but it appeared the gunman knew the exact time and place to stage the robbery.

     A man who works on Main Street in East Hampton was driving home at about 10:30 that night on Montauk Highway and was pulled over by police in Bridgehampton. “I wasn’t speeding. Why did you pull me over?” the man, who is black and asked that his name not be used, said he asked police.

     He was told that there had been a robbery in East Hampton. After briefly questioning the man, who did not otherwise fit the description of the assailant, police let him go.

      “I’m frightened,” Hilda Pacheco, an employee at Mitad del Mundo Express on North Main Street, said on Monday when she heard about the robbery. Located two doors down from the I.G.A., Mitad del Mundo closes at the same time as the grocery store on Saturdays.

     “You don’t feel safe here anymore,” said Ximena Hurtado, who has lived in East Hampton for 13 years and was shopping Monday at Mitad del Mundo. “You have to lock everything now,” Ms. Hurtado said. “Where are the Hamptons where you could leave your doors open? That’s gone.”

     Ms. Hurtado, a former employee of the I.G.A., recalled an attempted robbery at the grocery store some years in the past, but she could not remember the exact details.

    During the East Hampton Town Trustees meeting of March 19, Stephanie Forsberg announced that the board would be funding a comprehensive monitoring of trustee waters, both freshwater and marine. The $29,500 project, undertaken in cooperation with Stony Brook University, began yesterday.

    Attending the March 19 meeting were a number of baymen who spoke in favor of the nine-member panel’s efforts on their behalf, and on behalf of the inshore waters they depend on for their livelihood.

    Trap fishermen, scallopers, and clammers spoke in favor of the trustees’ charging commercial shellfishermen 75 cents each for the bushel bags that bear the trustee emblem, and for charging for boat moorings as well. “The money goes back to you and the harbors,” said Dan Lester.

    According to trustee regulations, proof, in the form of a tax return or buyer’s receipt that shows more than $1,000 worth of income from the sale of fish, makes a fisherman eligible for a reduced rate, $50, for a boat mooring. Receipts showing $1,500 or more get you two moorings for $100. A commercial fisherman can obtain a mooring without showing any records for $100 per mooring. Baymen said the fees were fair.

    To a man, baymen asked that the trustees not permit the “powering” for clams in any of the town’s water bodies. Powering is the practice of mounting an outboard motor on a frame and using the prop wash to uncover steamer, razor, and hard clams. The method, although efficient, stirs up bottom sediment, which can cover, and kill, juvenile scallops and eelgrass habitat.

    “My theory is, why cover up oysters and scallops? Scallops are coming back,” Mr. Lester said.

    “I don’t believe in powering. There’s life on the bottom out there,” said Richard King.

    Ms. Forsberg suggested passing a resolution outlawing the practice this year, but leaving the possibility of future powering. It was agreed.

    The visiting baymen were of a mind when it came to the need for more and better enforcement of existing regulations. In particular, Mr. Lester said the start of this year’s surprisingly good scallop season was “pandemonium,” with wives picking up scallops that their husbands had caught, bagged, and hidden in shallow water so they could dredge for more above the daily limit.

    Mr. Lester asked the board to delay the opening of scallop season next fall to allow trap fishermen the opportunity to concentrate on that fishery for a while longer before they switch gears and drag out their dredges.

    Jim Lester said it was not only commercial fishermen who overstepped the line. “Kayakers are going into closed areas to get 30 oysters, and they may not even know any better.” He said “every landing in town used to have rules and regulations posted.”

    Diane McNally, the trustees’ clerk, and Deborah Klughers, another trustee, said they had pleaded with the town board for more enforcement officers prior to the start of the scallop season, to no avail. “If you could go to the town board and ask them to hire more enforcement,” Ms. McNally said. “We tried.”

    “We saw scallop season coming. We knew months ahead. We begged for more enforcement,” Ms. Forsberg added.

     The baymen agreed that fines for violating shellfishing regulations needed to be increased, and that the practice by prosecutors of plea-bargaining the fines be stopped. Ms. McNally said a letter could be sent to East Hampton Town Justice Court. Baymen and trustees agreed it would be a good idea to get together with the town’s marine police to discuss the enforcement issue.

    Ms. Forsberg earned a doctoral degree in marine biology last year from Stony Brook University, and in the process worked in the laboratory of Dr. Christopher Gobler, a world-renowned expert on algal blooms. “East Hampton hasn’t had the severity of blooms recently like Sag Harbor and Shinnecock,” Ms. Forsberg said. “For instance, we haven’t seen the algae that causes paralytic shellfish poisoning, but the trustees want it to stay that way.”

    The trustees have allocated $29,500 for the study. In all, 14 sites will be tested for coliform bacteria associated with sewage. Sixteen sites will be tested for algal blooms. Water samples will be taken weekly from now through the fall and sent to Dr. Gobler’s lab at Stony Brook. In addition, if a bloom does appear, Ms. Forsberg said, “we will amp up the testing so we can look back and understand why. Was it nitrogen, or pollution?”

    “This could lead to more areas open for shellfishing. We will follow the D.E.C.’s standards for testing,” she said, adding that Dr. Gobler had the only laboratory around capable of undertaking such comprehensive analysis.

    “One thing we want to stress. We’ve raised fees here, raised them there; this is a great example of where the money’s going,” Ms. Forsberg said.

    What started out on the Sag Harbor Village Planning Board’s agenda as a request by Gerard Wawryk, the owner of Page at 63 Main restaurant, to add seating behind his restaurant for those waiting for a table or takeout, transitioned into a request for a “beer garden,” as Neil Slevin, the board’s chairman, called it.

    The application, which was reviewed by Timothy Platt, the village building inspector, referred to a seasonal use of the outdoor area of the restaurant, with “no service proposed” there. But through questioning and discussion at the Tuesday night meeting, it was revealed that tables for those seeking a lobster roll or a draft beer were part of the application — bar patrons could step outside with their cocktails.

    The area in question is now a driveway that can be accessed from Division Street between Murf’s Backstreet Tavern and the village police headquarters. Mr. Wawryk seeks to renovate it with vegetation, tables, and chairs, in the process improving the aesthetics from the road, which he said is “coming alive.”

    Rich Warren, an environmental planning consultant, mentioned parking spaces that would be eliminated, asking that there be a good reason for doing so.

    Dennis Downes, the attorney representing Mr. Wawryk, answered that those spaces weren’t required. They’re used for deliveries to the restaurant, Mr. Wawryk said, and those drivers “will just use the street.”

    “I know in my heart that this is not something we should approve without public input,” Mr. Slevin said, “and I will insist on it.”

    “We need someone beyond this group to consider the implications,” he said, adding that he had no personal objections to the plan, and that some of his fondest memories involve beer gardens.

    “We have tables outside,” said Jack Tagliasacchi, a planning board member who owns Il Capuccino restaurant in the village. “To be able to serve alcohol, we have to send an application to the liquor authority.”

    Denise Schoen, the village attorney, confirmed this. “The liquor authority trumps local municipalities as to where and when you can serve liquor,” she said. “There is nothing in the code that prohibits it from happening.”

    “What is the difference between us doing it and Muse doing it on two sides?” Mr. Wawryk asked of another restaurant on Main Street. “Why do I have to go though a different routine when they just walked through?”

    Ms. Schoen said that Mr. Platt would make the determination regarding the application, which before the next meeting would be amended by Mr. Downes as to the elimination of parking spaces and whether the change would be an appropriate accessory use.

    East End Ventures was also on the agenda Tuesday, and if all goes as planned, after the next meeting the company will be set to complete the condominium complex at 21 West Water Street. The board required clarification on three items since the 2006 approval of the site plan: planting and irrigation, revised lighting to comply with dark skies standards, and an update to the lot coverage with regard to a gravel outdoor eating area that was eliminated.

    In other old business, Juan Castro believed his application for an accessory apartment on Brandywine Drive was complete, and so did the planning board, as it was approved on Nov. 27, but Ms. Schoen told the board that the building inspector strongly believed that a revision was necessary to prevent a future owner from using the house as a rental property. The words “owner occupied” will be added to the special exception application.

    “The intention of the [accessory apartments] law was to create affordable apartments . . . an attempt to allow families who have been here a long time to gain use of their homes, whether it be their children or neighbors’ children,” Mr. Slevin said.

    “Sag Harbor is unique in that it doesn’t require covenants,” said Ms. Schoen, adding that the additional wording will also help to ensure an owner’s caretaking of the property. “I will help him through the process,” she said in agreeing to draft the document.