Illegal Party Busses Tour Dead Hamptons Club Scene
Hamptons Police Department officers shut down an unregistered fleet of party busses that were allegedly running an illegal tour circuit with stops at some of the East End’s most infamous former nightclubs and bars. Essentially a club on wheels, each “Beatz on the Beach Tourz” bus featured a full complement of specialty alcohol shooters, pumping house music and a variety of flashing lights to, as they explain on their website, “recreate the Hamptons party scene of old.”
Police received complaints after the busses, running almost around the clock on weekends this summer, began disturbing neighbors during stops at various tour destinations, including the former sites of Summers and Neptune (aka Neptunes, aka the Drift Inn) on Dune Road in East Quogue and Hampton Bays, Canoe Place Inn (CPI) in Hampton Bays, Marrakesh in Westhampton Beach and Tavern in Southampton, among others.
“The music from those busses was so loud we could hear them before we could see them,” one neighbor, who asked not to be named, said near the former site of CPI, which is being restored to reflect the inn’s historic significance, before it became a symbol of fist-pumping, nightclub excess. “All these shirtless, muscle-head guys would pile out to look at the CPI structure and, I assume, reminisce or, for the younger ones, dream of an era they missed,” the miffed resident said, adding, “They also relieved themselves regularly, and that’s just not ok, not at all.”
Force Johnson, CEO of Beatz on the Beach Tourz, explains that his operation is “simply capitalizing on something the Hamptons has lost, and that many of us want back,” noting, “Look, bro, you see how many busses I’m running? There’s a reason for that. People miss the heyday, the good times, baby. Back before this scene died and disappeared, we’d come out here and enjoy two or three days of bumpin’ tunes, sexy ladies, sea and sand, and getting’ super loose, dawg, super loose. But those days are gone. So we’re just reliving it and showing a new generation what we did here.”
Johnson and his drivers and business partners have all been cited for multiple violations, including trespassing, disturbing the peace and operating illegal bus tours. Property owners at each of the former nightclubs and bars on the tour have filed cease and desist orders, making it a punishable offense if Johnson or his Beatz on the Beach Tourz busses return.