East Hampton Town police are looking for the driver in a hit-and-run accident on Tuesday evening. 

A 17-year-old boy was walking northwest on Queens Lane, near Stuart's Lane, in East Hampton when he was struck by a vehicle from behind just before 6:30 p.m, according to a press release on Wednesday. The driver fled the scene in the vehicle. 

Detective Sgt. Dan Toia declined to release the victim's name due to his age. 

The victim was airlifted to Stony Brook University Hospital, where he was treated and released.

Detectives are asking anyone who may have witnessed the crash or has information about it to contact police at 631-537-7575. All calls will be kept confidential. 

It has been said that there were three types of whalers: Those who wanted to make a career out of whaling, those who sought adventure, and those who probably had something they desperately needed to avoid on land. Whatever the case may have been, those looking to make a decent wage were often disappointed, as what they earned depended on the size of the ship’s catch. As such, they could return from years at sea and find very little money in their pockets if a voyage was unsuccessful.

That being the case, it’s understandable that many whalers sought to increase their fortunes by traveling to the West Coast during the California Gold Rush (1848 to 1855). The newspaper displayed here, The Calaveras Chronicle, is illustrative of this and why we have it in the East Hampton Library’s Long Island Collection. 

Though the American whaling industry was at its peak during this time period, the prospect of gold offered a different kind of adventure to young men (especially if one could travel to California for free as a whaleman). In fact, upon reaching San Francisco many whalemen abandoned ship for the possibility of untold riches.

Located in the middle of the Sierra Nevada region, Calaveras County was home to at least two important Gold Rush towns, one being Mokelumne Hill, which is where The Calaveras Chronicle was founded in 1851. With some of the richest surface deposits in the state, it was one of California’s principal mining towns. By 1850, the population there was nearly 15,000.

The paper seen here is dated Oct. 25, 1851, making it the second issue. Within its pages you can find the East End names Weeks, Edwards, Halsey, Fowler, and Wade in advertisements listing them as “general dealers in groceries, provisions, and mining tools,” attorneys, barbers, or justices of the peace. It’s not known what ultimately became of these men, but Mokelumne Hill’s fortunes were short-lived, as its gold deposits ran out by the early 1860s.

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Gina Piastuck is the department head of the East Hampton Library’s Long Island Collection.

When Andrew Strong was a young lawyer living in the Netherlands and working on United Nations human rights cases in The Hague, or working in Kosovo to help defend a victim of war crimes before that, he said he felt “a bit self-conscious” as an American human rights attorney because, “You’re talking to these people from the Balkans or Africa, and you turn around and think there are some real issues happening in America. There is work to be done right here.”

That conviction, as it turned out, was among the things that moved Mr. Strong to accept a three-year commitment to work as the first full-time human rights attorney for Organizacion Latino-Americana (OLA) of Eastern Long Island in June.

Mr. Strong and his wife, who was born in Sag Harbor, have three children and now live in Springs. He had been working in the East Hampton area since 2013 when Minerva Perez, OLA’s executive director, created his current position. Two donors who funded the job agreed with Ms. Perez that recent changes in both the letter and enforcement of United States immigration laws, especially since the 2016 national elections, have created a climate of fear and need for the Latino community and the East End community as a whole.

“And the need and the fears have only gotten worse,” Ms. Perez said, noting that if even just one member of a Latino family is undocumented, the entire family often lives in fear.

Mr. Strong, speaking last week over coffee at the Springs General Store, gave an example of the domino effect that can happen after that. Maybe such individuals are afraid to seek even basic medical care at the emergency room or go to the police if something happens. Maybe their children begin doing poorly at school or succumb to the stress in other ways.

“It’s hard because immigration on the federal level is broken, and it’s been intentionally broken,” Mr. Strong said. “And so, for one of the first times in American history, you can’t change your status. You can’t marry an American and become a citizen. You can’t live here peacefully for 10 years and pay taxes and have a path to citizenship anymore. So, there’s no way that people can adjust their federal status.”

“Then, on a state level, since 2007 you can’t get a driver’s license [in New York] without having documented status,” Mr. Strong continued. “And then, on a local level, you have a geography out here that requires a car and a transportation system that doesn’t really work well enough. But you need a car. So what do you do?”

Such problems don’t affect only the Latino community. This summer, numerous East End business owners were again unable to get work visas to bring foreign-born workers here legally, leaving their businesses handicapped and short-staffed during the high season.

Undocumented people, even those who have lived here for decades, face other conundrums. They’re vulnerable to wage theft, unsafe work conditions, human trafficking, and other abuses because they feel they can’t report such things to authorities — and their antagonists know it, too.

“We’ve seen instances of mortgage theft where people are saying to them, ‘You own this house,’ ” Mr. Strong said. “So they’re making payments. They put a deposit down. And then all the money disappears.”

Local bus service in this area stops around 7 p.m. (a problem that OLA and other agencies are trying to address). So some undocumented workers without a license may drive to work or elsewhere anyway. They may not be covered by auto insurance. If they get pulled over for violations as simple as failing to signal or driving with a broken taillight and authorities run their name in the system, they can be detained and thrown into jail if the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has issued an administrative warrant on them. 

And if they can’t make bail? They may stay in jail for months and get moved to an out-of-state facility as they await deportation proceedings.

Part of Mr. Strong’s work involves deepening the network of immigration lawyers that OLA already has to help people.

Ms. Perez and Mr. Strong are also actively engaging local institutions such as the town police chiefs and town supervisors in East Hampton and Southampton. They’ve asked them to publicly state the town’s policies and/or codify them into legislation that clearly states nonviolent members of the community will not be targeted so the community knows what it doesn’t have to fear, and what it does.

Mr. Strong said officials from both towns have told OLA they don’t actively pursue ICE warrants. But there is nothing to stop ICE from making raids on its own, which is happening.

When Mr. Strong appeared at the East Hampton Town Board meeting two weeks ago, and the Southampton Town Board before that, he urged town officials to recognize that “We need to do something to make sure we are not complicit in harming these members of our community. The moment is here. The moment is now. Cars are literally pulling up to houses and taking people away in the middle of the night. If we don’t do something now, then when?”

Ms. Perez said OLA is not interested in being some “inflammatory” agency that “just wags a finger at people or the authorities and says, ‘Bad! Bad! You’re bad.’ We’re here to help do the hard work it takes to change things, too.”

In addition to working on local legislation and enforcement, OLA is funding the purchase of six iPhones for the Southampton police officers to help with live access to interpreters out in the field if they encounter a non-English speaking person who is a victim of or witness to a crime. OLA provides diversity training to staffs.

Mr. Strong’s hiring is meant to be another piece of OLA’s commitment to creating solutions.

“Nobody here is saying we support something like driving without a license — we agree, give them a ticket, fine them,” Ms. Perez said. “But the rest of what’s happening?”

Mr. Strong said, “I think we’ve got to look at the laws humanely and intelligently and say, ‘What are we really doing here? What are we trying to accomplish when we’re sending somebody to jail?’ Especially when it’s triggering a deportation hearing and separating a family. For what? For a civil offense — not a criminal offense — like failing to signal? That’s not a proportional punishment. And it’s not humane.”

“There’s a vulnerability for somebody who is otherwise contributing to this community in all the ways that we think are important and, in generations past, would have had a pathway to becoming a citizen here. Now, they’re just totally left out to dry.”

Mr. Strong tells a story about meeting a social worker who is working with a young Latino girl. The girl said she wakes up each night and goes in to touch her sleeping parents just to make sure they’re still there.

“There isn’t a silver-bullet solution for everything,” Mr. Strong said, “but there are little concrete steps that can be taken to help, and it’s a matter of doing that responsibly and working with the town and the town structures to do it — but it is doable,” Mr. Strong stressed. “And that — that’s exciting, you know? It’s not like, ‘Well, all we have to do is organize 15 million people.’ No.”

“We can do things. Right here.

A presentation of the East Hampton hamlet study drew criticism during a public hearing at the East Hampton Town Board’s meeting last Thursday, with many residents of a neighboring hamlet, Springs, voicing concern that future development could worsen conditions on an already congested Springs-Fireplace Road. 

The comments contrasted with those offered at an Oct. 4 public hearing on the Wainscott hamlet study, which were mostly positive. But where residents of that hamlet saw opportunity at its former sand pit property, Springs residents worried that future development at the active sand mine along the commercial-industrial stretch of Springs-Fireplace Road would further stress the already crowded corridors leading to their hamlet. 

The sand pit off Springs-Fireplace Road could become one of the town’s largest developable areas once the mine ceases operations, according to a buildout analysis in the hamlet study. One possibility, the study says, is the site’s division into 30 to 40 commercial-industrial lots. “A residential subdivision would be most likely” in a zone wrapping around its northern edge, according to the study. 

“The high usage will become a burden on surrounding communities,” Frank Riina of Springs said of the sand pit site, which is expected to close in about 10 years. 

The town’s comprehensive plan, Mr. Riina said, “determined that every new house with one or more school-age children is a tax burden on the community. . . . For every new house, there is projected to be 10 new car trips on the road every day. Repeatedly, the consultants acknowledge the roads around the sand pit mine are already very busy.” It is upsetting to Springs residents, he said, “to think that somebody is putting forward a plan that may jeopardize their community and stress it out, without doing the backup work to see whether or not the road capacity can accommodate it.” 

The consultants, Peter Flinker of Dodson and Flinker, a Massachusetts consulting firm, and Lisa Liquori of Fine Arts and Sciences, a former town planning director, presented “a business plan for the sand pit site without including its impact on the community,” Mr. Riina said. “What our community needs is a plan . . . that includes a more reasonable development than the one being offered.” A traffic study should be undertaken, he said, with development linked to roadways’ capacity. 

Carl Irace, an attorney representing Citizens to Preserve the East End, which he said includes many residents of the area of the Springs-Fireplace Road corridor among its approximately 350 members, said that the East Hampton hamlet study’s results “have a significant impact on Springs, particularly the portion devoted to the Springs-Fireplace commercial corridor,” between its intersection with Abraham’s Path and its juncture with Three Mile Harbor Road and North Main Street. 

He also asked for a traffic study to determine the impact of future development, along with the immediate hire of a planning consultant to develop plans specific to both sides of Springs-Fireplace Road in the area of the sand pit. The town should consider purchasing undeveloped lots on Springs-Fireplace Road to preserve green space, he said, and a study should determine if entry points to “future major-scale development” could be from Three Mile Harbor Road. “This could relieve some of the stress on Springs-Fireplace Road,” he said. 

The Wainscott study “was a very good step at looking at rationalizing that business center,” said John Potter of Springs. Wainscott’s commercial district is “right next to a very busy road, and the process of moving some of the traffic and the commercial enterprises off of that main road are exactly what we would have liked to have seen in a study of the Springs-Fireplace corridor,” he said. “But it didn’t.” 

George Lombardi of Springs told the board that in 2015 he was badly injured in a car accident on Route 114. He had been airlifted to Stony Brook, he said, where his family was told that if he had gotten there a few minutes later he would not have survived. “If my accident occurred in Springs, with the traffic on Springs-Fireplace Road . . . I may not have made it,” he said. “Any future plans for any proposals to increase traffic on Springs-Fireplace Road, I think, will directly harm the safety of the residents of Springs.” 

The Pantigo Road business district was also addressed. The emergency medical center planned for Pantigo Place, near the Town Hall campus, represents “an elephant in the study area,” said Paul Fiondella. Once built, “it will completely change the neighborhood,” he said. “There should be a separate study of this area just taking into account what’s going to happen once the hospital, or some form of it, is located there.”

Mr. Fiondella also criticized the lack of bicycle lanes or paths in the town. “We still need a study of how are we going to implement the use of bicycles and pedestrian movements in the town in such a way as to reduce traffic,” he said. Without that, “it’s premature to start talking parking, curb cuts, and traffic, when you don’t even have a study of how to minimize those things.”

He supported the recommendation to construct 28 units of housing at the former Stern’s site on Pantigo Road, but said that it should be an assisted-living facility. “If you are in one of our existing affordable housing facilities and you can’t take care of yourself, there is nothing here for you,” he said. 

Catherine Casey, who is executive director of the East Hampton Housing Authority but was speaking as chairwoman of the East Hampton-Sag Harbor Citizens Advisory Committee, said that the committee applauds the suggestion for an affordable housing overlay on the west side of North Main Street, and the hamlet study’s recommendation for a redesigned intersection of Springs-Fireplace Road, Three Mile Harbor Road, and North Main Street. The group also agrees with the suggestion to narrow the width of Cedar Street. The C.A.C. disagrees, however, with the suggestion to eliminate parking on the east side of North Main Street, citing an adverse impact on businesses, and with the suggestion that Collins Avenue be designated a one-way street. 

The hearing was closed. Ms. Liquori told the gathering that public comments would be reviewed with an eye toward reaching a consensus as to the final report’s recommendations. An environmental review under the State Environmental Quality Review Act would follow. 

The hamlet studies began in 2015, with public input beginning the following year. The consultants have presented updates since then based on public comment from individuals, the hamlets’ citizens advisory committees, chambers of commerce, and East Hampton Village. The goal is to adopt recommendations for each hamlet to be incorporated into the town’s comprehensive plan. 

A public hearing on the Amagansett hamlet study will be held at the town board’s meeting next Thursday. The public hearing for the study focusing on Springs is scheduled for Nov. 15, and Montauk’s hamlet study will be the subject of a public hearing on Dec. 6.

Nighttime Tours

If a group slowly roaming the South End Burying Ground startles drivers on Main Street or James Lane Tuesday evening, they need not worry; it will be Hugh King, director of Home, Sweet Home Museum, leading a flashlight tour with stories about the notable figures buried there.

The one-hour outing will begin at Home, Sweet Home at 5 p.m. It has been organized by the East Hampton Historical Society, which is taking required reservations by phone at 631-324-6850 or at easthamptonhistory.org. The cost is $15, and participants will be limited to 18.

Mr. King will also lead a lantern-light tour of Clinton Academy, the Osborn-Jackson House, the Presbyterian Church, Mulford Farm House, and Home, Sweet Home on Nov. 9 at 7 p.m. The cost is also $15, and reservations with the historical society are also required.

Tickets for a Nov. 23 cocktail party at the Maidstone Club to launch the society’s holiday house tour have gone on sale as well. They are $200.

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Women who live in East Hampton Town, are 25 or older, and seeking an undergraduate college degree have been encouraged to apply for a Ladies Village Improvement Society scholarship named in honor of the late Madelon DeVoe Talley, an investment manager and writer who was considered a pioneer among women in finance. Applications for the $3,000 award are available at the L.V.I.S. headquarters and must be returned completed by Nov. 2.

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Clam Chowder Wins

Smokin’ Wolf, which is known for takeout barbecue, was judged tops among professional chefs and restaurants in the East Hampton Town Historical Farm Museum clam chowder contest on Saturday. In the home cook category, Paul Roman was the winner, followed by chowders prepared by Sherrill Dayton in second place, and Aleaze Hodgens in third. 

Mr. Roman also won in the People’s Choice category, which was open to restaurants and amateurs alike and rated by the guests. Smokin’ Wolf was in second place, with third place going to David Rattray (this columnist). The benefit was a sell-out, with all 180 specially-made mugs sold.

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Tickets for a Nov. 14 ladies night from 6 to 8 p.m.at Nick and Toni’s restaurant to benefit the Children’s Museum of the East End have gone on sale. They are $40 and can be ordered at cmee.org. Tickets will cover cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, raffle prizes, a silent auction, and “conversation and community,” according to a press release. The Shed Workspace, a women’s co-working project based in Sag Harbor, is a co-sponsor. The cost will be $45 at the door.

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Robert and Lillian Pincus of David’s Lane and Mamaroneck, N.Y., became grandparents for the first time on Oct. 11, when Charlotte Johanna Bicknell was born at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan to Lauren Pincus and Giles Bicknell of Brooklyn. Charlotte’s paternal grandmother is Belinda Bicknell, and her great-grandmother is Ann Clegg, both of Melbourne, Australia.

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All Saints Day Masses will be celebrated next Thursday at 8 a.m. and at 8 p.m. in Spanish at Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church. The following morning at 9, there will be a Mass said in the church cemetery on Cedar Street for All Souls Day.

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Haunted Library

Adults and brave kids in sixth grade and above have been invited to be scared out of their wits at the “Haunted Library” on Saturday. The doors to the East Hampton Library will open on a house of horror at 7 p.m. Admission is free, but registration on eventbrite.com has been suggested. Those fearless souls attending have been asked to use the rear, parking lot entrance. Anyone under 10 will not be admitted, according to the library, for their own good.

On Sunday afternoon at 2, patrons can wind down with a little friendly chess competition.

Yoga for adults program will be held on Monday at 1 p.m., and a poets’ workshop that evening at 5:30. On Thursdays there is a coloring and coffee session at 1 p.m.

A twice-a-week program for older people on how tai chi can help prevent falls will be offered at the library, beginning on Nov. 8. at 1 p.m. The classes are led by trained instructors from the Suffolk County Department of Health Services. Tai chi includes balance, flexibility, and strength. Early sign-ups with the library have been recommended.

What was it like living in East Hampton during the whaling industry boom? On Oct. 7, 1838, 180 years ago this month, Jonathan Mulford Jr. wrote his son Henry on the ship Harvest. The letter, seen here, was addressed in care of Jonathan Stratton, with a notation that “Capt. John Godby” was master of the ship. 

While there were multiple ships named Harvest on the waters in 1838, Mulford probably meant that Capt. James Godbee was the ship’s master. If so, then this particular Harvest was a bark that sailed out of Bridgeport, Conn., on a two-year voyage, as per Judith Lund’s “Whaling Masters and Whaling Voyages Sailing From American Ports.”

Mulford’s letter carried routine news of home, capturing a slice of life in East Hampton during Sag Harbor’s whaling heyday. Mulford sent his son news from the last few months, referencing a severe drought and very hot weather throughout August and revealing that he had not been in contact with his son for more than two months. The news is mundane: reports on who died and who married, the prices of potatoes, the state of crops, etc.

Jonathan also conveyed news from his other son, Jeremiah, also at sea. Jeremiah expected his voyage to last one season, probably because of damage the ship experienced in “a gale” in the Gulf of Mexico. Jonathan hoped Henry would share his brother’s good fortune in having a short voyage with a good mate and captain. He worried that his son would become sick when he was “off in your boats,” presumably a reference to the rowboats used to pursue whales, and urged Henry to put on flannel to keep warm.

Most poignantly, Jonathan wrote about the affection he hoped his sons would show each other “should you meet again,” expressing the uncertainty that came from the dangerous work of the whaling industry.

Andrea Meyer is a librarian and archivist in the East Hampton Library’s Long Island Collection.

The Old Whalers Church will hold its fall festival on Saturday from 6 to 9 p.m. Free hors d’oeuvres and soft drinks will be served, and beer and wine will be available for purchase. The event will feature a 50-50 raffle and a paper auction. The cost is $25 per person, and tickets can be purchased at the door. Proceeds will help support the church’s community house. 

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Russell Fielding, the author of “The Wake of the Whale,” will speak about the history of whaling in the North Atlantic and the Caribbean today at 5 p.m. at the Whaling and Historical Museum. 

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At John Jermain

A workshop on making dried floral and herb arrangements that participants can take home will be held at the John Jermain Memorial Library tonight at 7. The cost is $20.

On Sunday at 3 p.m., Anthony Brandt, an author and the chairman of the village’s Board of Historic Preservation and Architectural Review, will give a free talk on how Sag Harbor has changed over the past 40 years.

“Book Club,” a romantic comedy starring Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen, and Mary Steenburgen, will be shown at the library on Wednesday at 1 p.m.

Registration for all events can be made via the library’s website.

Halloween isn’t just for kids, and there are a number of costume parties this week at which adults can prove it, and possibly be rewarded for their efforts. 

Tomorrow, Indian Wells Tavern in Amagansett will offer a $100 gift card, redeemable either there or at Bostwick’s Chowder House in East Hampton, for the best costumes, and gift baskets for most revealing, best couple, scariest, funniest, and most original. The party gets going at 10 p.m. and will feature a D.J. and drink specials. There is a $10 cover.

The Springs Tavern on Fort Pond Boulevard in that hamlet has two Halloween parties planned, both with costume prizes. Tomorrow D.J. Chilly and D.J. Matty Nice will spin from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. The Montauk Brewing Company will give out prizes for best couple, best group, scariest, funniest, most original, and most revealing costumes. On Saturday, Divas Karaoke will bring Scaryoke to the tavern from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. There will be drink specials both nights. There’s a $10 cover on Friday, but no cover for Saturday’s party.

A Halloween party with no admission fee will be held at the Backyard restaurant at Solé East Beach in Montauk on Saturday, starting at 8 p.m. There will be free bar food, drink specials, and a D.J. Guests who arrive in costume will be entered into a raffle for a free weekend stay at the resort. This is the restaurant’s final weekend of the season.

The Clubhouse at East Hampton Indoor Tennis will throw a costume party on Saturday, starting at 8 p.m. A D.J. will provide the soundtrack, and the best costumes stand a chance of winning $500, $250, and $100 gift cards. Drink and food specials are promised. 

Costumes are a must for Rowdy Hall’s annual Rowdyween party on Wednesday beginning at 7 p.m., and because of that the get-ups are usually real show stoppers. The entry fee — $30 in advance and $35 at the door — includes one drink and free snacks. There will be $5 draft beers, $6 well drinks, and a D.J. The restaurant, in East Hampton Village, will award a whopping $500 in cash prizes for best costumes.

Vicki Bustamante, a naturalist and native plant expert, will lead a Horticultural Alliance of the Hamptons fall walk in Montauk County Park on Saturday at 10 a.m. Participants will make stops at Squaw Hill overlooking Block Island Sound and Oyster Pond, and the grasslands of the Montaukett tribe. The cost is $5 for alliance members and $10 for non-members. 

Proceeds will benefit the Third House Nature Center. Registration is at HAHgarden.org or 631-537-2223. The meeting place is on Melchionna Road off East Lake Drive. The rain date is Sunday at 10 a.m.

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St. Therese of Lisieux Catholic Church has put out the call to home cooks who would like to share traditional foods from their family’s home countries at an international food festival on Nov. 4. Those interested in volunteering their culinary expertise to the event have been asked to call the parish center at 631-668-2200 by Monday.

The festival will run from noon to 3 p.m., and tickets will be sold at the door. 

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The Montauk Library will hold a free community health fair on Friday, Nov. 2, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sponsored by the East Hampton Healthcare Foundation and Stony Brook Southampton Hospital, it will include free health screenings and appointments for no-cost mammograms and Pap tests. Health insurance representatives and nutrition educators will be on hand to answer questions. Flu shots will also be available. Healthy refreshments will be served, and a stress circle will be held. 

In the last of the library’s Stormy Weather discussion series on Sunday, Greg Donohue, the director of erosion control for the Montauk Lighthouse and a member of the Montauk Historical Society’s board of directors, will discuss an upcoming $24 million stone revetment project to shore up the lighthouse against further erosion. The illustrated talk begins at 2:30 p.m. 

Montauk residents can purchase tickets at the circulation desk to the Met Live in HD broadcast of Puccini’s “La Fanciulla del West” at Guild Hall on Saturday at 1 p.m. Tickets cost $15, and will be distributed at Guild Hall 30 minutes before the show. 

Next week’s Tech Tuesday session at 10:15 a.m. will focus on the library edition of Ancestry.com. Space is limited, and registration is required.

A plan to merge two vacant lots at 20 and 24 West End Road and build a single-family residence in excess of 10,000 square feet, plus a detached garage and accessory structures, was the subject of a lengthy discussion at the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals on Friday. 

The owner, Morad Ghadamian, is seeking variances for an additional 1,431 square feet of ground-floor space and 2,752 more square feet of lot coverage than the zoning code allows. He also applied for a freshwater wetlands permit to install native plantings on the property, which fronts on Georgica Pond. 

The attorney Leonard Ackerman, representing Mr. Ghadamian, argued that constructing one overly large house on the merged properties was preferable to having separate residences on the individual parcels. There would be half as many sanitary systems, he said, and less overall lot coverage. In comparison, he said, the requested variances were minimal. 

Frank Newbold, the chairman of the Z.B.A., disagreed. The variances sought amount to 16 percent more ground floor area for the house and 15 percent more lot coverage than is permissible, he pointed out. “That is not insubstantial,” he said. “Usually in the village, when it’s a clean slate like this, an empty lot, we are inclined to adhere to the zoning code.”

The building plans call for the installation of a 125-foot buffer between the property and Georgica Pond, as well as a nitrogen-reducing sanitary system, which is not yet required for new construction in the village. Such improvements were commendable, said Mr. Newbold, but “the board would like to see a smaller structure.” 

The hearing was adjourned until Nov. 9. 

David Gallo, the owner of 94 Apaquogue Road, is seeking a freshwater wetlands permit to excavate phragmites, an invasive plant, from a section of Georgica Pond adjacent to his property. The proposal includes installing a 25-foot buffer area upland of the pond, to prevent runoff from the residence.  

Kelly Risotto, a senior ecologist at Land Use Ecological Services, a company that oversees wetland restorations, spoke on Mr. Gallo’s behalf. The phragmites excavation plan is awaiting approval from the East Hampton Town Trustees, she told the board, and the plan for the buffer area has changed somewhat based on the board’s input at its last meeting. 

Previously, Billy Hajek, the village planner and a member of East Hampton Town’s water quality technical advisory committee, had advised that native shrubs be installed, to mark the line where the buffer begins and the lawn ends. Jim Grimes, a town trustee, had recommended that the buffer be at least 50 feet wide. Ms. Risotto said the buffer would remain 25 feet wide, but that a staggered row of inkberry shrubs would be used to delineate it, and a 50-foot-wide no-mow zone would be installed landward.

The species of shrub was a sticking point for Mr. Hajek, who said that inkberry was too attractive to deer. Upon closing the hearing, Mr. Newbold said approval of the application would depend on a revised planting plan that meets Mr. Hajek’s approval.

In another continuing hearing, the Hedges Inn asked that the Z.B.A. overturn the village board’s denial of its requests for special-event permits. Christopher Kelley, the inn’s lawyer, said the village had based the decision on an erroneous interpretation of the zoning code. The Hedges is in a residential district, where, Mr. Kelley pointed out, the code allows tents to be used for special events for 21 days per year, and does not distinguish between commercial and residential uses of the property.

“You don’t get different uses because of the type of owner you are,” said Mr. Kelley. He maintained that the inn should be provided the same rights as neighboring homeowners, the East Hampton Historical Society’s Mulford Farm, and St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, which are all allowed to hold outdoor parties. “I’m not aware of any other property that’s been denied a special events permit in the village based on zoning,” he said. 

Anthony Pasca, the lawyer for Peter and Patricia Handal, neighbors of the inn who have fought its attempt to hold events such as weddings on its grounds, cited a 2014 amendment to the zoning code in countering Mr. Kelley’s argument. “No variance shall be granted to permit the introduction of any outdoor use, including outdoor dining, to a pre-existing nonconforming commercial use in a residential district,” he read. “They’re claiming this as a right allowance and your code says otherwise.”

Mr. Newbold kept the hearing open to allow Linda Riley, the board’s attorney, who was not present at the meeting, to weigh in on the matter.  

Also on Friday, the board announced three decisions.

Joshua Solomon, whose property is at 87 David’s Lane, was granted area variances to install a hot tub 28.1 feet from the rear lot line, where 30 feet is required, and to permit 7,972 square feet of lot coverage where the legally pre-existing coverage is 7,864 square feet. 

Gregory and Lisa Wilson of 30 The Circle were granted a 45-square foot area variance to install a concrete pad under a generator and gas meter, an improvement required by National Grid. 

Susan Karches of 64 Egypt Lane was granted a freshwater wetlands permit and a variance to install a driveway and landscaping within 81 feet from the edge of wetlands, as well as a cattle guard within 107 feet, where the code does not allow improvements.