Page Files Federal Suit Against Sag Harbor Village

[caption id="attachment_32379" align="alignnone" width="600"] Page at 63 Main has filed a federal suit against Sag Harbor Village.[/caption]

By Stephen J. Kotz

The restaurant Page at 63 Main, which has been at loggerheads with the Village of Sag Harbor for more than a year over its efforts to renovate and expand the business, has filed a federal lawsuit against the village.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York on Wednesday, April 29, seeks $18.5 million from the village plus another $4 million in punitive damages from Mayor Brian Gilbride and the village’s former building inspector, Tim Platt, over what it charges was a systematic effort on the village’s part to block and delay its expansion efforts in part by removing documents from the Building Department’s file.

The suit lists five causes of action, each of which seek $3.5 million in damages against the village, ranging from retaliation against the business owners’ First Amendment rights to illegal search and seizure.

“The management wishes it didn’t come to this, but through countless hours, everybody has been trying to do what the village wanted, but it seems like nothing satisfies them,” Mr. Horn said on Wednesday afternoon. “We think they just don't want Page to have this, but the law is clearly on our side.”

Mayor Gilbride said he had no idea Page was considering a lawsuit. “We were hoping there was an effort on their part to take care of some of these things,” he said. “But I don’t know how going to federal court is going to settle anything.”

Page originally received site-plan approval last year to create a rear patio, as a waiting area where guests could have a drink and hors d’oeuvres while waiting for a table indoors, as well as a series of hydroponic gardens to supply greens for the restaurant’s tables.

But the village later took the restaurant to court and eventually revoked its outdoor dining license last summer when it said the restaurant had failed to get building permits for the work, failed to follow the guidelines of the site-plan approval, and had expanded the patio area into a full-scale dining area. A major sticking point was the movement of an enclosed and refrigerated Dumpster to a position next to Murph’s Tavern, which village officials said posed a fire hazard.

The suit alleges that over the course of the review process, the village dragged its feet, telling Page it would take up to five months to review its building permit application, which forced the restaurant to begin the work without the permits in order to be ready for the summer season.

The suit also charges that someone removed a certificate of occupancy that showed a capacity of 138 people from the Building Department file, leaving an earlier one, completed before a 1996 expansion was approved,  that listed a capacity of only 124 people. It charges Mr. Platt removed a sign from the restaurant placed there by a former village fire marshal, listing a maximum capacity of 177 people. Furthermore, it charges that the village board failed to hold an impartial hearing when it revoked Page’s outdoor dining license last year.

Gerard Wawryk, the longtime owner of the restaurant, who recently took on a partner, Joe Traina, died on April 12, a week after suffering a stroke.