A&P: Unsolved Riddle

Anyone who ventured into the A&P in East Hampton Village on Saturday, say at about 4 p.m., was overwhelmingly aware that its future is "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma."

Harassed check-out clerks tried maintaining civility as the lines, even the fast ones, snaked into the grocery aisles blocking shoppers and safe passage. Whether the A&P should be encouraged to remain in the village, whether it should be permitted to build a 34,878-square-foot superstore on Pantigo Road, or whether, as the Town of East Hampton has decided, it should be limited to a store of 25,000 square feet, was on everyone's minds last summer.

The issue has fallen from attention as it has moved from Town Hall into the courts, where the A&P is pursuing a lawsuit challenging the town's adoption of a law that caps the size of supermarkets. But the problem of how to accommodate the needs and wants of shoppers persists and will only get worse unless government makes some significant changes.

In June, the consultants who prepared the town's superstore study noted: "The trend is for East Hampton Village to shift from a community center to a recreational retail center only." This shift is well under way. At the same time, the consultants noted, "East Hampton's demand for retail is growing, and growing faster than the town's official population counts."

Furthermore, the consultants said, "The desire of retail of all types to locate on Montauk Highway is already extreme, promoted by an average traffic volume that is far greater than the town's year-round population."

As a result, they warned, "East Hampton's 'town and country' landscape is at jeopardy, unless a means can be found to retain convenience stores and anchors in East Hampton Village, or to accommodate development outside of the village in a manner that puts priority on land use, image, landscape, traffic, and other concerns."

If, in the words of the consultants, East Hampton Village is " 'tapped out' in terms of its ability to expand," and if continued retail development along the Montauk Highway is not in the town's best interest, then what?

Last September, noting that the potential population of the town is four times as great as its present size, The Star urged the Town Board to form a bipartisan commission to undertake a major planning effort, under the guidance of professionals, to review existing conditions and delineate more suitable locations for retail development than the neighborhood business districts which now border most major roads.

The town must meet this challenge if the citizenry at large is to control its destiny. We have watched as the marketplace changed the core of East Hampton Village from a year-round social and economic center to a center for leisure shopping.

To fail to redesign the where, when, and how much of retail development beyond the village would be to leave the future to those entrepreneurs and corporations whose priority is to turn a profit even at, again in the words of the superstore consultants, "the quietude and scenery for which East Hampton is known."

Let's not let that happen.