East Hampton Town Hall was crowded last Thursday for a hearing on a proposed law that would strictly limit how and where so-called formula stores can be opened. In general, blocking the homogenization of the town’s commercial strips will be important to maintaining the area’s desirability among second-home owners and tourists. However, several aspects of the proposal should be looked at closely before going further.

    In short, the law would ban chains and franchises with 10 or more worldwide branches except in central business zones. They would be prohibited in portions of those zones that are designated as historic districts, within a mile of a historic district, and within a half mile of a historic landmark. Even where they would be allowed, formula retailers would be subject to tough limitations.

    It is in these limits that the proposal appears to have gone too far. Perhaps the most extreme provision is limiting formula stores to no more than 2,500 square feet of floor area. This would appear to unfairly benefit all other retail businesses, which under present law can be up to six times as large.

    This arbitrary square-foot maximum might have the unintended consequence of preventing the kind of stores residents might actually want here, for example, a Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s market, unless a specific exemption were made. Furthermore, it is almost certain that this substantial impediment would be challenged in court, as might restrictions on how interior space is decorated.

    There is also reason for concern that the wording of the proposal might turn out to block or limit the size of locally owned shops that are part of large distribution chains or use nationally recognized logos or uniforms. These might include some supermarkets, hardware stores, and paint suppliers, among others.

    It should be noted that fast food restaurants are already subject to permit standards, including that their design must conform to the “traditional and indigenous style” of East Hampton architecture. Drive-through windows are controlled in such a way as to make them nearly impossible to get through the permitting process.

    These rules could be a model for more equitable formula store regulation. The East Hampton Town Board is to be commended for attempting to make sure that new retail development meets the overall goal of keeping the town unique, but more work needs to be done.

    East Hampton Town officials have been working during the past few months on revising the way large assemblies are regulated. It is an important undertaking, and the time is now to get a handle on these before the summer’s high season.

    At one level, the effort is intended to bring the diffuse references in the town code about parties, benefits, and similar events into a single chapter. This would make it easier for the public to understand the law and help provide clarity for officials dealing with approving permits or clamping down on violations. Looked at a different way, the suggested changes to the code could significantly rein in for-profit gatherings that are regularly held outdoors at some restaurants and bars.

    John Jilnicki, a town attorney, presented his draft at a town board meeting earlier this month, and it appears the board is moving in the right direction. The most straightforward suggestion in the draft is that gatherings of between 50 and 100 people on private property be eligible for a fast-track permit from the town clerk. Party permits for 101 to 249 participants could be considered by an existing committee including town board members. When a resolution of the full town board were required, applications could be due as far out as 60 days before party time. An existing set of fees to cover traffic control and other town costs would be reviewed. In general, permit applications could require much more detail than required now and the identification of responsible individuals.

    A key provision is about commercial properties. Depending on how a proposed new law develops it could mean that outdoor activities at bars and restaurants would be reviewed by the town board and subject to the strictest permit standards. Demonstrating just how tough they may be willing to be, there could be no sale of goods or services at any event unless it was for a bona fide charity.

    Mr. Jilnicki’s draft suggests that large gatherings such as music performances or movies be allowed on commercial sites by permit only, with assurances that parking areas not be used by attendees and that no fee be charged. The law would bring some relief to neighbors of those bars and restaurants, mostly in Montauk, that have improperly taken over lawns or parking lots as good-weather annexes. Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell has said this was something the town lawyers should make a priority. It is high time that the town tackle the troublesome outdoor expansion of pre-existing businesses, and it appears that the revisions of the mass gathering law will present an opportunity to do so.

    Gazing from our office windows onto Main Street this week, we watched with a mild degree of curiosity as two men in a white, official-looking pickup truck pulled up and began unloading things. It soon became apparent that they were installing a tall sign right smack in front of the East Hampton Library’s main entrance. On closer examination, we saw that the sign announced Home, Sweet Home Museum was ahead and to the left, helpful perhaps, but. . . . And it turned out that the sign was joined by two more breaking the same press-stopping news nearby.

    It is an irony that in this age of online information and global positioning systems on nearly every dashboard someone in some office somewhere thought it wise to clutter up the cultural and historical heart of East Hampton Village in this way. Main Street here is a state road, and New York long ago had proved itself tone deaf to the way we like things out here. This is further proof. Taking down the signs would seem the thing to do. We, and our visitors, will be just fine without them leading the way.

    Suffolk Executive Steve Bellone was to have visited the East End yesterday and you would have thought the president was coming from the advance fanfare. Advisories to the press from his Hauppauge office arrived on Monday afternoon, then the phone calls started, then we had Tuesday follow-ups.

    According to a preliminary schedule provided by Mr. Bellone’s staff, he was to have met with representatives of the five East End towns, had an interview at WLNG radio, and visited with the Montauk Chamber of Commerce and taken a turn around the Lake Montauk docks before heading to Southampton for a farm tour. It all sounds like a nice enough way to spend a day, but when the county executive’s rare visit is pitched as big news it kind of proves that the East End is an afterthought.

    Considering that the East End has what amounts to Suffolk’s only internationally known region, the Hamptons, one might think that it would have more clout than to merit very infrequent appearances by its top elected leader. However, with only a small fraction of the county’s total population, and just 2 of the Legislature’s 18 members, it has been all too easy to overlook.

    For decades, Suffolk’s municipal orphans on the North and South Forks, as well as in Riverhead, have mumbled about seceding from the county and forming their own alliance. Going back to the 1960s, the sense has been that the needs and outlook of the five East End towns are different from that of the west of Suffolk, and that a new entity, tentatively called Peconic County, might be advantageous.

    Taking over county functions, such as courts, jails, and health services, would no doubt be exceedingly complicated and expensive. Still a 1996 nonbinding referendum seeking support for secession was approved at the polls by a stunning 71-percent margin. It is interesting to remember that in the mid-’90s, Larry Cantwell, now East Hampton Town supervisor, was the chairman of the Peconic County Now advocacy group.

    Then, as presumably today, both Suffolk and state officials were not keen on the prospect. State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has not allowed movement on the separatist undertaking, fearing, it has been speculated, a wave of similar bids statewide. Chances for a Peconic County appear limited as well by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s avowed interest in reducing, not increasing, the number of municipalities in the state.

    Interest in going separate ways might be lessened if the county executive visited more often. But until that day, the idea of a Peconic County will live on.

    In terms of the long haul, the United States Army Corps of Engineers’ meager offer of a temporary fix for Montauk’s threatened downtown oceanfront could be a blessing in disguise.

    As some observers have pointed out for years, Montauk’s commercial center is not economically important enough to compete with cities like New York and Miami for an adequate share of federal erosion mitigation money. Instead, the oceanfront there is likely to continue picking up the funding scraps, forcing local officials, business leaders, and residents to begin, finally, to admit to the inescapable reality that the town is on its own and will not see Washington rushing in to save the day.

    Representatives of the Army Corps were in East Hampton Town Hall with state officials and others last week to describe the federal offer: a $6 million sandbagging project intended to bolster at-risk structures along a 3,100-foot section of the beach. To put that sum in perspective, Senator Charles E. Schumer is backing a call for $21 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for generators at a single hospital in West Islip. From the numbers, it is pretty easy to see how Montauk ranks.

    Beyond the Army Corps’ immediate plan, it dangled the possibility of additional funding when the Fire Island to Montauk Point Reformulation Study finally moves out of the planning stage — if ever. As we see it, waiting on such a vague promise would be foolish. Instead, given the assumption that vast piles of federal cash are not going to be forthcoming, East Hampton Town officials must begin to speak frankly about the dwindling options.

    One thing is clear: Montauk’s first row of hotels and residences along the beach from South Emery Street to about South Essex Street — on about 10 privately owned parcels in all — would not withstand a direct hit by a hurricane that was even moderately powerful. As dramatic as 2012’s Sandy was, its winds did not reach hurricane speeds on eastern Long Island, and its stormwater surge was considerably below others recorded on the South Fork historically.

    Making matters even more ominous, almost no natural, protective dune remains in downtown Montauk. This means that over-washes from even routine storms could reach several blocks of the commercial district. A so-called 100-year storm along the lines of the 1938 Hurricane would liquefy the first row of structures, turning their remaining fragments into battering rams that would then lay waste to the rest of downtown as they rode in on  raging water. To get a sense of how bad it could be, consider that in the aftermath of ’38, high windrows of splinted walls and roofs, furniture, cars, and the occasional human body were found piled up along the shore of Shinnecock Bay. The houses along Dune Road from which it all had come were entirely swept away.

    Readers and policy-makers should picture, too, that when downtown Montauk was laid out in the 1920s by the developer Carl Fisher, a road, South Edgewater Avenue, was plotted in front of the now-threatened motels and condos, between them and the sea. Although the road still appears on official maps, where it was to have been is now underwater. If this does not illustrate that the structures there are simply in the wrong place and that time has caught up with them, we cannot say what does.

    It appears that the town now should concede a localized defeat. No one, neither the Army Corps, nor the Town of East Hampton, nor oceanfront property owners, will be able to hold back the Atlantic Ocean. A separate tax district like the one created in Southampton to fund a $25 million sand-pumping project is one possibility. However, in the long term, it probably would be more cost-effective to offer buyouts to the 10 affected property owners or come up with a creative scheme of publicly-aided relocation.

    The bottom line is that the town must preserve the beaches for all its residents and visitors. That means rethinking what structures must be saved and at what cost. The process should begin now.

A citizens group that advises the Southampton Town Board on matters concerning the hamlet of Bridgehampton has mobilized to fight a new CVS pharmacy at the intersection of Main Street and the Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike. Southampton Town Planning Board review may delay what appears inevitable, but from our perspective the property is a perfect candidate for public acquisition using money from the  Community Preservation Fund.

For an example of how this could be in the community’s best interest, Southampton officials could take a look eastward. East Hampton Village bought the former Mark R. Buick car dealership at the corner of Accabonac and Pantigo Roads some years ago and removed the building. The result is a wide green lawn at the village’s eastern approach, a far-better outcome than the commercial shopping center that had been planned. And a CVS just happens to be nearly across the street, adjacent to the post office, with all the attendant traffic confusion and the bicycling death of a teenage girl in 2013.

Developing the Bridgehampton site to the extent apparently now planned would be terrible. The intersection is already one of the most dangerous in that part of town. It would be a shame to allow a commercial building to denigrate the aesthetic improvements at the Topping Rose House and, slowly, across Main Street at the Bridgehampton Historical Society’s Nathaniel Rogers House. Seen from the Ocean Road side, the now-vacant lot  would be welcome open space.

Southampton Town has, unfortunately, allowed Bridgehampton’s western approach to become an ill-managed  jumble of shopping centers and development, which incidentally already has a Rite-Aid pharmacy. The town now may have a chance to protect and enhance the other end of the hamlet. That opportunity should not be squandered.

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An earlier version of this editorial misidentified the Bridgehampton parcel's owner as Leonard Ackerman of East Hampton. Mr. Ackerman sold his interest in BNB Ventures, the partnership that controlled the property, to Paul Kanavos and Adam Raboy of Flag Luxury New York City in 2012.

    A sculptural work evoking the bombing of Pam Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 is without doubt a powerful and deeply moving memorial. But whether it should be installed on public parkland in Montauk is a difficult question to answer.

    The work, called “Dark Elegy,” is by Suse Lownenstein, whose son Alexander was among those killed in the terrorist attack. It is made up of 74 stylized nude figures of women depicted at the moment they learned of the death of loved ones. Real women recreated their physical reactions of loss for Ms. Lowenstein. Created with deep emotion over a period of time, the assemblage has been quietly on display on the East Lake Drive, Montauk, property the artist shares with her husband, Peter Lowenstein.

    Seeking a new, more public home for it, the Lowensteins first approached the National Capital Memorial Advisory Commission in Washington, D.C., but the work was rejected. Last week, they offered it to East Hampton Town and suggested Kirk Park, at the western entrance to Montauk, as its location. They envision the figures, which might be visible from Montauk Highway, surrounded by a 75-foot-diameter circle of dark, shredded material.

    Setting aside for the moment the specific artwork, and acknowledging the reverence with which it was created, the East Hampton Town Board should consider whether the loss of Pam Am Flight 103, which took place so far away and affected people throughout the country, should be permanently memorialized here. If so, a question arises about whether Kirk Park, which is close to the humming downtown and summer night revelers, might invite vandalism and other forms of disrespect. If the Flight 103 memorial were accepted, it would be the largest here, bigger than those to East Hampton’s war dead or those killed in the 9/11 attacks.    We are not sure what the right answer is, but a careful, dispassionate, and thorough process should be pursued before going further.

East Hampton Town officials were on the right track last week when they denied a last-minute request for a permit from the operator of an annual for-profit bicycle ride to Montauk. Unfortunately, with as many as 1,500 participants already having paid up to $300 apiece, officials had little choice but to reach a settlement and allow the ride to go on.

However, the town asked the correct question this time around: Whether big, organized weekend outings with only marginal local benefit should be encouraged. Put another way, the issue was, and is, to what degree should residents have to put up with living in a playground for others.

Most people were only slightly inconvenienced as the Ride to Montauk throngs wound their way east. Still, drivers had to wait on Wainscott Main Street for a turn to get around groups of cyclists, and in some instances, bunched-up bikers swerved into the Montauk Highway traffic lanes. But, unlike last year, there were few calls for emergency assistance.

The intrusions are not limited to roads and bike events, of course. Commercial uses of public spaces are many and include paddleboard outings and kayak rentals at otherwise secluded locations, fitness classes on the sand and in parks, and resorts annexing portions of adjacent beaches for their guests’ exclusive use.

A new town committee has been taking a closer look at permit requests, particularly with an eye toward distinguishing between those that genuinely benefit local organizations and those that make inconsequential charitable donations as a form of cover. One key element of the committee’s work will be to convince officials to resist the temptation to review late permit requests, such as the problematic one from the Ride to Montauk organizers. An encouraging signal can also be found in the recently revised town mass-gathering law, which may soon be used to bring increased scrutiny to crowds at bars and restaurants, particularly outdoors, that are well in excess of those places’ legal maximum occupancy.

We expect to hear “no” a lot more often from Town Hall to requests that might have been swiftly green-lighted in the past. The balance, we hope, may be tipping back toward preserving peace, tranquillity, and less-hectic roads for those who call this place home — and none too soon.

    The juxtaposition between old East Hampton and new could not have been made more stark than the recent news, first reported in the New York Post, that a hedge fund manager had paid $147 million for a verdant 16-acre ocean-view property off Further Lane in East Hampton Village. While the supposed sum Barry Rosenstein agreed to pay for the three lots in the estate of the former owner was stunning in and of itself and a record for residential property, that two 18th-century Dominy family workshops remain there adds a significant twist.

    The Dominys’ rank among early American craftsmen is well known. Working in East Hampton from the pre-Revolutionary War period until the mid-19th century, four generations made household furniture, several of this area’s iconic windmills, and tall clocks, which are particularly well regarded. The East Hampton Historical Society has held several seminars on the Dominys and the Winterthur Museum in Delaware has many of the family’s tools in its collection, displayed in reproductions of a clock-making and woodworking shop that once stood on North Main Street here. The originals, if the Post’s account can be confirmed, are on what is now Mr. Rosenstein’s largest lot.

    As the story goes, Dudley Roberts Jr., himself a wealthy man by the standards of the time, had the workshops moved to the land in 1946, as the other Dominy buildings fell into disrepair and were eventually torn down. The ancient structures that stand there today overlooking the Atlantic are wrapped mostly in blue plastic tarps. What will happen to them now is anybody’s guess.

    There are, of course, plenty of Dominy reminders around — Hook Mill, for one — but it would be nice if these buildings could be preserved in some way, perhaps by the historical society, perhaps offered to Winterthur. With every passing year, appreciation of East Hampton’s material legacy and role in the early years of American commerce seems farther away. If saved and seen by a wider audience, objects from this period can help assure that we continue to know and understand where we came from as a country.

    Although it may seem coincidental that May is Mental Health Month and also the time when New York voters are asked to approve school budgets for the coming academic year, the link between mental illness and school safety is becoming increasingly clear. Unfortunately, school administrators and boards have been slow to catch up, opting for big-ticket expenditures on hardening buildings against the extremely rare chance of an armed attacker and failing to also expand counseling, on-campus therapy, and other programs.

    Nationally and locally, the numbers tell the story. There are almost 1,400 or more suicides reported every year in the United States among high school students and about 1,000 among those in college. This is a genuine crisis. The Centers for Disease Control rates suicide as the third leading cause of death among teens.

    In 2008-9, the latest year for which good figures are available, the National Center for Education Statistics said there were 17 in-school homicides compared to 1,344 suicides of youth between the ages of 5 and 18. These totals are down slightly from the averages of the preceding 17 years for which data is available. East Hampton’s schools mirror the national trends. There were two student suicides in recent years and no murders.

    Those who think about the issues surrounding students’ well-being are increasingly pointing to mental health care as key. They say that if schools and community organizations take on the too-high number of student suicides in the United States every year, they may at the same time prevent a significant portion of the homicides. In other words, if mental health problems are identified and dealt with early on, we may help stop the uncommon but occasionally horrendous assaults.

    Given all this, the focus on bullet-proof doors and surveillance cameras appears misplaced or at least out of balance with the real risks. For an example, we need look no further than the East Hampton district, which put $1.43 million in unspecified security upgrades into its proposed 2014-15 spending plan while at the same time the high school principal’s meager $30,000 request for additional mental health staff was cut to an unacceptable $5,000.

    Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. was able to have $150,000 set aside in the state budget for mental health services in the South Fork schools. But the money will be spread among a number of districts and, while better than nothing, it is far from enough. Much more time and money must be set aside to get at-risk students the care they need. Every dollar spent for building better walls should be matched by a dollar for making sure every young person has access to the help he or she needs.