Government

The East Hampton Town Trustees' 32nd annual Largest Clam Contest officially ended on Friday, almost two weeks after the event that drew hundreds to the Lamb Building in Amagansett. At their meeting on Monday, the trustees announced both a new venue and a date for next year's contest. 

The Huntting Inn, originally built in 1699 but purchased in 2020 by Landry’s of Houston, owner of the Golden Nugget Hotel & Casino, is once again before the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals and Design Review Board, asking for approval of a pool and hot tub behind the inn. Their original application was withdrawn in June 2021, after strong neighborhood opposition.

The search for the largest clam in Three Mile Harbor, Hog Creek, and Accabonac Harbor has resumed after heavy rains kept those water bodies closed in advance of the East Hampton Trustees Largest Clam Contest on Oct. 9. Weigh-ins for mammoth specimens from those spots happens Friday at the trustee offices in Amagansett.

On Friday, Suffolk County Supreme Court Justice Carmen Victoria St. George said Michael and Christine Aaron’s attempt to stop a brewery from being built on Toilsome Lane in East Hampton Village was “not ripe,” agreeing with the village’s zoning board of appeals that an official determination on whether the brewery is compatible with the village’s code has yet to be made.

The East Hampton Town Trustees approved the construction next year of two oyster reefs in Accabonac Harbor, and an East Hampton High School student will be the primary caretaker of one of them.

Many agree that preserving John Steinbeck's house in Sag Harbor for use as a writers retreat is a good idea, but there are tensions over the specifics of the plan.

A New York State Supreme Court justice has prohibited East Hampton Town from closing and reopening East Hampton Airport as a private facility with restrictions on aircraft operations in place pending an environmental review, dealing another blow to the town board's plan to address what many residents complain is a ruined quality of life.

“The goal here can be narrowed down to ‘we need to get carriers to provide complete cell coverage throughout the town and local waters,’ ” said Eric Schantz, the assistant planning director, who called cellular service “substandard and unacceptable,” with poor coverage and poor capacity not just in the summer months but throughout the year.

As Representative Lee Zeldin of New York’s First Congressional District touts the website RealClearPolitics’ status change of his campaign for governor of New York from “leans Democratic” to “tossup,” his opponent, Gov. Kathy Hochul, is emphasizing Mr. Zeldin’s role in attempting to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election.

Rita Cantina, a popular Mexican restaurant in Springs, was dealt a blow last week by the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals, whose members agreed with a determination by Ann Glennon, the town’s chief building inspector, that catering businesses on the restaurant premises are operating illegally.

Fourteen East Hampton Town residents who were issued summonses for trespassing during a protest at what is popularly known as Truck Beach on Napeague last October had their case summarily dismissed in Southampton Town Justice Court in Hampton Bays on Tuesday, in what their attorney called a victory for all residents of the town.

The candidates challenging incumbents in District 1 of New York State’s Assembly and Senate, one a Republican, one a Democrat, and both in their 20s, were aggressive in attacking their opponents in back-to-back debates on Monday night, but the incumbents were largely if not entirely successful in fending off those attacks while portraying themselves as experienced and capable public servants.