Southampton Mayor calls cops on paparazzi during dinner out with Gosselin, Major, Lohan, Zarin

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Southampton Village Mayor Mark Epley said that when he accepted a dinner invitation last week from his friend Michael Lohan, father of actress Lindsay Lohan, he did not expect the night out to become tabloid fodder—or to be interrupted by photographers, on whom he called the cops.

Mr. Lohan had also invited reality television stars Jill Zarin, of “The Real Housewives of New York City,” and her husband, Bobby, as well as Jon Gosselin of “Jon and Kate Plus 8,” and Kate Major, a reporter with Star magazine. Ever since Mr. Gosselin’s pending divorce from his wife, Kate Gosselin, was announced last month, tabloid photographers have trailed him nearly everywhere he’s gone—and last week’s dinner, on Wednesday, July 22, at Red Bar Brasserie in Southampton Village, was no exception.

“It received a lot more attention than I ever thought it would,” said Mayor Epley, who explained that he has known Mr. Lohan socially for a few years. When the mayor’s daughter, Marissa, a beach attendant at Coopers Beach, spotted Mr. Lohan at the ocean, she let her father know of the sighting. Mayor Epley said he had called Mr. Lohan to kid him about not letting him know he was in town, when Mr. Lohan invited him and his wife, Marianne, out to dinner.

Mayor Epley said photographers were creeping up to the windows of Red Bar to get shots of Mr. Gosselin and the others.

“I went and asked them to leave us alone, and they kept coming back onto the property, and I went and called the police,” he said.

Thomas Hinton, a New York Post and Life & Style magazine photographer, said he was acting on a tip from Life & Style that Mr. Gosselin was at Red Bar. “He was outside smoking, and I introduced myself,” he said. Mr. Hinton said he agreed to wait outside until Mr. Gosselin was finished with dinner and to get a photograph then. “After that, the mayor came out and told us if we stayed around he would call the police and tell them we were harassing the mayor.”

Two police officers arrived with an ordinance inspector. A debate ensued over whether the photographers could shoot photographs in the village without a permit.

Mayor Epley said the photographers claimed they were there for pleasure photography, exempt from needing a permit, but he said it was obviously commercial photography.

Mr. Hinton said he and the other photographers had asserted that they were taking photographs for editorial purposes, not commercial. “I feel as if it was a misuse of police time,” he added.

The mayor retorted that even celebrities have a right to peace and quiet—and to not be harassed.

“We have a lot of people like that that come out here, and part of our responsibility as a village and as a police department is to provide protection for people ...” he said. “They should be able to go out and go to dinner without people hiding behind trucks and sneaking up to windows.”

Brendan O’Reilly