A petition with over 500 signatures has been delivered to the East Hampton Town and Planning Boards asking for the revocation of all approvals and permits for the future Este restaurant in downtown Montauk.
Meanwhile, a new lawsuit filed by the town against Barlume Beach, a restaurant at 435 East Lake Drive that the town accuses of expanding unlawfully and operating outside the bounds of its approvals, may serve as a cautionary tale.
Barlume is approved for 75 seats, but on June 10, Dawn Green, a senior building inspector for the town, observed “412 outdoor seats and 96 indoor seats for a total of 508 seats, nearly five times the permitted seating.”
The following night, a code enforcement officer noticed Barlume had even built a new bar on the property without approval.
It doesn’t take much imagination to see the same thing happening at Este, where there is a significant discrepancy between the number of seats approved (39) and its maximum occupancy (upward of 450 people). It’s also in a problematic location as far as public safety is concerned, standing on one of the busiest sections of Montauk Highway in the already overstuffed hamlet.
Started by Laura Michaels, a Montauk resident, the Este petition criticizes the town-approved plans. Ms. Michaels and the signatories question, among other issues, whether there is sufficient parking, if the septic system can handle the wastewater load (especially considering the discrepancy between the approved 39-seat restaurant and the approximately 450-occupancy limit), the building’s visual impact, and how it received a building permit only three months after it received site plan approval.
Richard Normoyle, the town’s chief building inspector, did not return an email about that topic, but Patrick Derenze, the town’s public information officer, offered the following explanation:
“The premise that this project received approval within approximately three months is not accurate,” he wrote. “The original application for 3 South Emery Street [the lots were merged] was submitted on Dec. 23, 2024, and the project then went through more than a year and a half of site plan review and other required land use approvals.”
“Once a project has spent a significant amount of time before the planning board or zoning board of appeals and has completed those reviews, the Building Department gives the building permit application priority. That is standard practice because the applicant is already well into a lengthy town review process.”
“The building permit was therefore the final step in a much longer process, not the approval of a newly submitted application within a matter of weeks.”
However, the nuance of that is not well understood by business owners.
One Montauk business owner, who signed Ms. Michaels’s petition, griped, “For some people it takes 10 years to get approvals to sell a sandwich. Others can build a 5,000-square-foot building right on Main Street in two months. Este literally sent an investment book around saying they’re opening a nightclub, and they applied for a 500-person liquor license. Everyone knows their intentions, but the board didn’t question them. Why? It’s so messed up to see this building on Main Street built by a guy from Malibu who is only here to make money. Someone wasn’t watching and now you have this building in Montauk forever.”
“The petition signatories further submit that the planning board should not adopt a ‘wait and see’ approach or allow operations to begin while material questions regarding approvals, occupancy, environmental review, infrastructure capacity, traffic impacts, architectural review, or regulatory compliance remain unresolved,” Ms. Michaels wrote in an email to the town and planning boards accompanying the petition.
She also called for another public hearing to be held.
Most, 45 percent, of the signatures are from Montauk residents, and 14 percent are from East Hampton.
At Tuesday’s town board meeting, Councilman David Lys said Este was a big topic at the Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee meeting the night before, when he told the crowd that a stop-work order, placed to confirm the building’s height, had been lifted.
Against this backdrop, the Planning Department has asked Marley Dominguez, the owner and managing partner of 666 Montauk Land L.L.C., which controls Este, for clarification about his plans and for a site plan modification to address the existing gulf between what was approved and what’s being built.
Notes acquired with a Freedom of Information request from a meeting between the department, a town attorney, Mr. Dominguez, and his attorney, Richard Whalen, held after the last planning board meeting in late May, show the department remains skeptical.
Specifically, the Planning Department has pushed for an updated narrative about special events and noise, going so far as to say that a noise analysis should be provided. Further, the Planning Department asked for specific details about how the second floor will operate, and how Mr. Dominguez intends for it to interact with the ground floor and rooftop deck.
“The owner’s attorney stated that it would be difficult if not impossible to determine the impacts of noise without knowing the nature or type of music or sound being produced, and that these would not be known until after the facility opens,” read the minutes from the meeting. “Similarly, it was stated that the extent of special events is unknown at this time.”
There is no numerical limit of events that a single business can apply for annually.
Mr. Dominguez said there are no plans to install large speakers or a sound system on the rooftop deck, which is approximately 2,000 square feet and overlooks the south end of Fort Pond.
But that may not matter.
“Almost none of the bars, restaurants, or breweries out here have their own sound systems,” said Jameson Ellis, a bassist who plays frequently with a number of local bands. “It’s all bring your own.”
“We have continued to express serious concerns to them,” Tina Vavilis LaGarenne, the town’s planning director, wrote in an email. “They submitted a modification which is currently under review. They are proposing to change their operational narrative and floor plans. I expect the review will be on for Aug. 19.”
She added that her department would recommend that the planning board schedule a public hearing about Este’s modified plans.
