Town Shuts Down Tinder Select Parties At Montauk Home

Representatives of the app-based dating service Tinder put an abrupt end to raucous parties at a rented house in Montauk last week after East Hampton Town authorities threatened to take the company’s executives and the home’s owner to court.

On Monday July 24, the Town Board authorized Town Attorney Michael Sendlenski’s office to seek a temporary restraining order against the use of a house on Old Montauk Highway for Tinder parties if the company did not agree to halt the events and pay fines already levied over two weekends earlier in the month.

“We reached out to their counsel and let them know we’d be going to court for a TRO and started negotiations with them on a stipulation of settlement,” Mr. Sendlenski said on Thursday, July 27. “If we don’t have it done in the next few hours, we’ll be going to [New York State] Supreme Court tomorrow.”

On Monday, Mr. Sendlenski said the town and attorneys for the company and homeowner were still finalizing the stipulations that would avoid a court date. Supervisor Larry Cantwell said that the company had apparently vacated the oceanfront home the same day as the town’s resolution, and on Friday the property was vacant.

Town officials had issued violations for a variety of infractions, including failure to have mass gathering permits, at the house on the weekends of July 14 to 16 and July 21 to 23. The parties were being thrown for members of an exclusive group of Tinder users called “Tinder Select,” Mr. Sendlenski said he was told by the company’s attorneys.

A corporate entity called Connect LLC had rented the house, which spans two properties at 230 and 234 Old Montauk Highway, for a reported $100,000 per week from its owner, Michael Hirtenstein. Mr. Sendlenski said that the property’s owner had not filed an updated rental registry, a violation of the town code.

Mr. Hirtenstein is also one of three partners in a Sagaponack oceanfront parcel that has been the subject of internecine legal battles over the partnership as well as a series of evolving development proposals and a lawsuit against Sagaponack Village over its denial of the most recent development plans.