Of all the businesses on both sides of Amagansett Main Street, from the Mobil station east to Amber Waves, Michael Cinque’s Wine and Spirits shop seems to have taken the biggest hit, financially anyway, from Metallica’s recent visit.
Rolling Stone magazine headlined in a rave review that the band’s Aug. 28 performance, held inside a giant tent in the town parking lot behind the Stephen Talkhouse, “Destroyed the Hamptons,” and it certainly destroyed Mr. Cinque’s business, on what could have been one of its best days of the year.
“I lost a lot of money on a holiday weekend,” he told a large audience at Monday night’s meeting of the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee. The crowds — 500 people inside the tent and several hundred more lined up outside, almost to the train station — “took up every parking place in town,” he said, including “40 or 50 spaces in the lot” for the band’s equipment (though those were paid for, at $50 per).
Councilman Tom Flight, the committee’s town board liaison, acknowledged having “reservations” about the event, though police told the board there were no noise complaints. The Amagansett Library was concerned about the parking, though, “and about people trying to use their bathrooms,” Mr. Flight said.
“My primary concern is the library,” said Dan Mongan, an ACAC member and a library trustee. Such events “should never be held on Labor Day weekend,” he said, “but most important, it should be a public benefit. It’s a private business. It shouldn’t take over the town.”
Councilman Flight took mild exception to that. “In terms of the music industry out here, it is a public benefit,” he observed, adding that “the Talkhouse pays $10,000 for the police.”
Carl Hamilton, whose family house on Windmill Lane overlooks the scene, was having none of it. “Nobody wants to touch these people,” he declared. “What are they, God?”
Jaine Mehring, noting that she was speaking for herself and not in her role as a member of the town’s zoning board of appeals, had what will surely not be the last word on the subject. “The size and scope is more than little Amagansett can handle,” she said. “Put the tent someplace else, not in the middle of town.”
Most of the remainder of the long meeting, which continued until it was time for the Amagansett School custodian to lock up the building, revolved around the town’s proposed senior citizens center, which, following news that its two architect-partners have been suing each other since the winter, begins to look like it may not happen soon, at least not as planned.
Allison Lupo, who lives right next to the seven-acre site on Abraham’s Path — where a wide swath is now denuded of trees — recounted a tale of woe after woe: entire herds of deer, rats, foxes, and, worst of all, curious strangers, going in and out of the area. “I ended up calling the police. I think it’s dangerous.”
“It was overcleared,” observed Rona Klopman, the committee’s chairwoman.
“By 10,000 percent,” Ms. Lupo agreed.
From the audience, Christine McMahon, identifying herself as a longtime mortgage broker, spoke up: “What I’m hearing is blowing my mind. Who paid to clear? Had they done this to my customers — Oh, my goodness! The wrath!”
“Are we getting back the $1.3 million they were paid?” Ms. Lupo asked Mr. Flight. “Were they overpaid?” came a voice from the crowd. Might the town attempt a “clawback” from the architects was another question.
The councilman, who coped bravely but inconclusively with these and similar questions for the next hour — “What are the next steps?” “Does the town get to retain the design?” “Who signed the contract?” — said there had been “some change orders” along the way, but “I cannot speak to the final plans. . . . “We’re waiting for them [the lawsuits] to resolve.”
After Ms. Lupo said she’d heard the new building being referred to as “a welcoming center for the whole community,” Audrey Gaines, a former director of the town’s Department of Human and Youth Services, asked the councilman whether that was so, and if so, suggested that adult day care should be part of it. “Personally, I think we should include that,” he responded.
Ms. Gaines’s friend the Rev. Connie Jones of Calvary Baptist Church in East Hampton said congregants had expressed serious concerns about the proposed center. For one thing, she said, “Our seniors said you’d need roller skates to get to the parking lot.”
“I think this thing could use a redo,” said Mr. Mongan. “Maybe in a different place.”
Someone suggested using the former Child Development Center of the Hamptons building, off Stephen Hand’s Path, and Councilman Flight promised to ask his colleagues about that.
“We cannot continue with these architects,” he said firmly, noting that planning for the project had begun “long before my time.” Still, he continued, “I’ve been in local government long enough to see that you make mistakes. But now we have to think: What’s the right thing? Will it be just a senior center, or something more?”
Bob Thompson, a committee member, summed it up. “This may be a blessing in disguise,” he said. “Let’s build on what’s been done and move forward.”
The reminder of the meeting touched briefly on several subjects: the dead-tree fire hazard on Napeague (the state will start removal in November); the hamlet’s long-awaited new Main Street lighting (moving along); more and better bicycle paths, special events (two beach clambakes coming this month and several weddings at the Reform Club); sticks, stones, and other illegal obstacles in public rights of way in front of houses; Civil Service hurdles to be surmounted before the town can hire much-needed new employees, and beech leaf disease. Mr. Flight asked the gathering to be on the lookout for signs of the disease and call his office if beech bark is falling off or nematode damage is visible.
Michael Rodgers, the Amagansett School superintendent, wound up the evening with a report on the school’s revamped front lawn, with new lighting and paving all along the paths. Getting the job done in time for the start of the new school year was “stressful,” he said, “but it’s ready.” The room applauded.
