A renewed lease for the Maidstone Gun Club in Wainscott, which has been closed since the imposition of a temporary restraining order in November 2022, still has not been signed, East Hampton Town Councilwoman Cate Rogers told the Wainscott Citizens Advisory Committee when it met last week. Several attending the virtual meeting insisted that it should never be, and continued to propose instead that affordable housing be constructed on a portion of the club’s 97 acres.
On the execution of a renewed lease, there is “nothing going on in that realm,” said Ms. Rogers, the town board’s liaison to the committee, “other than what is going on in court,” referring to a lawsuit filed by several Wainscott residents in November 2022, who alleged that errant bullets fired from the club had struck their houses. There has been “no action taken by the town board whatsoever” toward a renewed lease, she repeated.
The club had paid the town $100 per year for parkland adjacent to East Hampton Airport. That lease expired in October 2023 after 30 years in effect.
In April, an attorney representing a group called Citizens for Proper Use of Public Land asserted that the town had indeed signed a renewed lease with the club. The town attorney, however, said no lease had been executed, but that the parties remain in active negotiations.
When the 30-year lease was signed, “We didn’t have the density we have now, and we didn’t have the climate change problems that we have now,” said Lena Tabori, a former member of the town’s sustainability committee who is not on the citizens committee. Why, she asked, was it “taking so long to come to the conclusion that the property would be better used for other things than people shooting guns?”
“The town’s understanding,” Ms. Rogers said, “is that a right of first refusal lies with the gun club, and I would not support anything that didn’t have serious restrictions on what was allowed on the property.” It is incumbent on the town board and the gun club alike, she said, “to understand the position that they’re in now, and for any use to be completely safe and regulated.”
A right-of-first-refusal clause in the gun club’s lease was “astonishing,” Ms. Tabori said.
Barry Raebeck of the committee, a vocal opponent of the gun club, said that “the notion that we’re locked into a lease with the gun club is simply not true.”
Jacob Turner, the town attorney, contradicted that assertion. In an email on Tuesday, he said that “pursuant to the executed lease (1983 and 1993), the Gun Club has a conditional right to renew the lease. They have executed that conditional contractual right.”
There is “a clear statement” in the expired lease, Mr. Raebeck maintained, “that if the town determines there’s a better use for the land, the lease can be voided. That’s an absolute fact.” The gun club, he charged, is also in violation of multiple aspects of the lease with regard to pollution, in the form of lead, as well as noise and safety.
The exact language, Mr. Turner countered, is, quote, “The Maidstone Gun Club, Inc.’s option as contained herein is subject to the determination by the town board as required by law that, at the time of renewal the subject premises are surplus property not required by the town for any municipal purpose.” There has been no such determination, Mr. Turner said, “that the property in question is required by the town for a municipal purpose. The town board will determine this when considering whether to execute the lease.”
Mr. Turner said in an August 2025 statement to The Star that the town board had negotiated provisions in connection with a lease renewal, including the permanent closure of the gun club’s rifle range and a requirement that the club will regularly reclaim and remediate lead when required by the State Department of Environmental Conservation or by the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
But, Mr. Raebeck said, the town cannot credibly claim that the club poses no hazard to nearby residents because one range will be eliminated, when it retains “the other three ranges, which by the way point in the same direction. . . . You’ve still got three pointing at 100 houses.”
When Mr. Raebeck recounted a conversation he said he’d had with East Hampton Village Mayor Jerry Larsen, who is challenging East Hampton Town Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez in the June 23 Democratic Primary election, Ms. Rogers cut him off. “This is starting to sound like a campaign speech for Jerry,” she said, “and I don’t know if that’s appropriate.”
“There’s nothing I’ve said so far that isn’t absolutely true,” Mr. Raebeck said.
Ms. Rogers replied that she disagreed with “your assessment of whether you’re telling the truth.”
Kirby Marcantonio, who has been prominent in the recent push for employer-owned housing, spoke of the gun club in that context. There must be a way, he said, “that a judge could see the wisdom of a partition of that property into a reasonable amount of land for the gun club to continue . . . rather than shutting out hundreds of local families from the opportunity of living in some part of that land.”
Mr. Turner said that, pursuant to the lease, “any sublet would require approval of the town board. Further, the language of that portion of the lease makes it abundantly clear that any other purpose outside of the gun club would not be permitted.”
Walter Johnson, the gun club’s president, did not return a call seeking comment.
