Throngs Line Up for East Hampton Village Beach Parking Permits

Hundreds of residents flocked to East Hampton Village on Friday morning to purchase village nonresident beach parking permits.

The line of permit hunters quickly snaked out of the Emergency Service Building, through the parking lot, doubling back on itself and then onto North Main Street as eager residents scrambled to get one of the 1,500 permits the village had made available for in-person purchase only.

As it turned out, the early wait — most of the early-comers waited between 60 to 90 minutes — was unnecessary, as the permits did not sell out until 6:30 p.m., and the line to purchase them had largely evaporated by noon.

That said, Village Administrator Marcos Baladron said the village staff processed and sold about 1,200 of the permits in the first two hours after they opened the doors at 9 a.m.

Those who turned up on Friday were able to purchase the digital permits for $500, the same price they were offered at last year and a $250 discount from what online buyers paid.

The in-person only offering was introduced this year by the village to accommodate local residents who complained of being unable to purchase permits last year because online sales depleted the 3,100 nonresident permits the village makes available each year by 11 a.m. on the first day there were available.

By putting the permits up for sale on a weekday before the online portal opened, Village Board members said they hoped to give “people who actually live here” a head start — and a discount.

“We think it went well — everybody seemed pretty happy with it,” Mayor Jerry Larsen said on Monday. “We got some good ideas on how to streamline things for next year. We definitely got lucky because we had a beautiful day. If it had been 10 degrees or raining or snowing, that would have caused problems. But we’ll figure out a way to prepare for that in the future.”

Baladron said that the processing of permits clearly went smoothly, with nearly a dozen staff and elected officials on hand to help move the paperwork along.

The demand for the village’s limited number of nonresident permits has soared in the last several years, even as the price the village asks for them has also. In 2016, the first-come-first-served permits were $375 and took six weeks to sell out after the traditional February 1 opening of availability. Last year, at $500 each, they went on sale online at midnight on February 1 and were sold out by 11 a.m.

To cut down on the you-snooze-you-lose factor, the village didn’t open the online portal for the 1,600 permits remaining after Friday’s in-person sales until 9 a.m. The cost was $750.

The 1,600 remaining permits were down to just 300 by 11 a.m. on Wednesday morning, and village officials said they expect them to have sold out by midday.