Now & Then: Cannabis Shops, Hurricanes and More Hamptons Stories

Stuff happens here in the Hamptons. When it’s controversial, those in charge have to decide what to do about it. The media writes about it. Local citizens speak up about it.

As for me, various bells go off. I’ve been covering this stuff for the column I write in Dan’s Papers for 65 years. And you know what? I remember this long-ago stuff.

Hey! That happened 42 years ago! Remember? No?

We had exactly zero hurricanes hitting the East End this summer. The weather bureau, as they do every year, predicted we’d have hurricanes. Seven of them. “More than average” is how they put it.

Years ago, there were hurricanes all the time. Store owners boarded up their windows. Homeowners did the same. Hurricanes were part of the scene.

But who remembers that? I do. Does it matter? Well, with global warming, the Gulf Stream has shifted and hurricanes don’t make landfall here anymore.

Get with the program, weather bureau! Hurricane season, which is July and August, is now indicated by the National Hurricane Center to be April to November. But it won’t help. And these crazy hurricane names! Goofy. Hortense. Stop worrying. We’re out of the woods.

Another story this past week concerns the horrendous trash problem on Main Street in Bridgehampton. For almost the entire month of August, there were no garbage cans on Main Street. Bottles, cans, candy bar wrappers and coffee cups were everywhere. Here it is with Bridgehampton one of the wealthiest zip codes in the country, and you’d have to kick an empty Coke can out of your way to sit down outdoors at Pierre’s. What happened?

Turns out the Southampton Town Highway Department chief out of the blue decided to take away the sidewalk trash bins. He’d been told that on state roads, and Main Street Bridgehampton is a state road, the state is supposed to haul away the trash. But they won’t do it.

“I don’t know how it morphed into the Highway Department picking up garbage – that was before my time,” Highway Department Chief Charles McArdle said. “And I have a budget to keep.”

Well, since forever, the Town Highway Department has done trash pickup. And the state has never reimbursed them for doing so.

Also, there was a time years ago when an earlier Highway Department chief pulled the trash cans. He did so because Hurricane Sandy was coming, and the town board told him that for safekeeping, bring the cans to a warehouse until the storm is over.

Afterwards, he refused to put the cans back. Same reason as now. This took place in Hampton Bays. But it’s the same jurisdiction as in Bridgehampton.

Well, for one month back then, he and the town board were heaped with criticism and pummeled with abuse. Vote the Bums Out! This was in 2013. But who remembers? I remember. Eventually, after the complaints got so loud, the town board and their errant Highway Department chief caved and in spite of everything put those cans back on Main Street in Hampton Bays and everything returned to normal.

I could have told them this year that the same thing would happen, which it did. If they’d asked me today about back then, this might have avoided this nasty disaster. But they didn’t.

Here’s another one. Up on County Road 39 in Southampton last week, the Charlie Fox cannabis shop, though never getting a town permit, opened their doors anyway with a state permit. The owners say that the Town of Southampton doesn’t have jurisdiction over them. Well, the town hit them with a summons. Town law says that their cannabis shop is too close to the Tuckahoe School to be legal.

Well, I remember many, many years ago when a restaurateur tried to open a new restaurant on Madison Street in Sag Harbor, and the Village of Sag Harbor shut him down because a village law forbade the selling of alcohol less than 50 feet from the front door of a church. And the Methodist Church front door was 48 feet away from the restaurant’s front door. In the end, the restauranteur created an entrance in the alley on the far side of the building 53 feet away and made that his front door. And it’s still there today. Go eat at Cappuccino. Enter in the alley.

Maybe cannabis has the same restrictions.

Then there’s the story this week about the Maidstone Gun Club out on Daniels Hole Road in East Hampton near the airport. The gun club had just completed two consecutive 30-year leases they’d made with the town, which owns the property.

Last year, bullets fired by a member packing a military AK-47 hit the roofs of several houses under construction not far from the workmen who were building them. The Gun Club got shut down. And then got told the lease would not be renewed. Police officers and other marksmen would have to sharpen their skills elsewhere, which meant a long drive to Riverhead.

Well, now they’re discussing renewing the lease anyway, but only allowing the club to have an indoor pistol and rifle range.

I guess they listened to one of us oldsters. Sixty years ago there were no AK-47s getting fired and hitting houses. So today, have the range indoors. That could work. And noise complaints? Well, the range was there first. Live with it. Same deal as buying property and building near the airport on the other side.

Also last week, the United States Coast Guard announced that, to save money, they intend to remove the floating metal buoys that guide ships through deep water so they don’t run aground.They say ships big enough to worry about running aground all have depth finders that prevent that from happening. The buoys are unnecessary.

Well, Cartwright Island, a small island with a beach, has, for years, been available for picnics. Five years ago, the new owners of the nearby Gardiners Island planted “No Trespassing” signs on Cartwright claiming it to be part of Gardiners.

Security appeared, called the police and had the picnickers sent on their way. A lawsuit ensued, however, and picnickers won the day after showing that Coast Guard buoys place the island in a public part of the harbor. So the public is welcome again.

Well, my wife says that every time I tell one of these stories, I embellish it a little more. So maybe counting on us oldsters isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.