East Hampton Town To Ban Street Parking By Surf Lodge; Moving On Other Controls For Montauk

The East Hampton Town Board on Tuesday introduced a collection of new controls and legislation proposals targeting the full-tilt party atmosphere in Montauk, just a week after hundreds of hamlet residents called for action.

Town Board members announced that they would be moving to outlaw parking along a chronically congested stretch of Edgemere Street—in the vicinity of the Surf Lodge restaurant—that has confounded Town Boards and police officers.

The town also said it will hold a hearing on violations of the requirements of the town’s music licensing law by at least one restaurant that has been issued numerous violations for loud music.

Board members also will bring a proposal to limit or ban the consumption of alcohol on Montauk’s ocean beaches to the Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee next month, and will rekindle consideration of a townwide rental registry law to crack down on, among other things, rental houses in Montauk that hamlet residents say are stuffed with dozens of young partiers.

Last week, the town was also granted a temporary restraining order against another Montauk restaurant that had been cited for repeatedly exceeding its occupancy limits.

Parking along Edgemere Street, near the intersection with Industrial Road, has been an issue that has frustrated police since the 1980s. Because the road is a Suffolk County-owned road, it has long been understood that only the county could regulate parking along its shoulders. The county has banned parking along the east side of the roadway, between Elwell Street and the Montauk Fire Department headquarters, but not on the west side—where patrons of the Surf Lodge park cars stretching for a half mile to either side of the popular bar.

But East Hampton Town Police Chief Michael Sarlo said on Tuesday morning that a new appeal by the town to county lawmakers gave the town the green light to impose any parking restrictions that it deems necessary, and the county would endorse them.

Chief Sarlo said that with the Town Board’s approval, town highway crews will post new “no parking” signs along the stretch. The new parking restrictions on the west side of the street will match those on the east side.

“As the current conditions exist, vehicles that park on the west side of Edgemere take up the entire shoulder, forcing any pedestrians to walk in the roadway,” he said. “It’s a dangerous condition that has existed for many years.”

Chief Sarlo said he is also working with the owners of the Surf Lodge to convince them to use the small parking area at the front of the building as a turn-around for taxi cabs, to alleviate long lines of taxis that queue up to drop off and pick up patrons. “The less parking there is, the more people will use taxis to get there,” the chief added. Thus far, he said, the club’s owners have been unwilling to open the parking area to cabs.

Just up the road from the Surf Lodge is the restaurant and nightclub currently called Ciao, which has been issued five violations of town noise codes. On Tuesday, Town Board members scheduled a public hearing on the possibility of revoking the restaurant’s music license.

When the town adopted its music licensing law in 2007, it allowed that any restaurant issued a license that received more than three violations in a calendar year would face revocation of its permit allowing music.

The hearing will be held at the board’s work session on August 18 at the Montauk Fire Department headquarters.

The town also will begin work on drafting a new version of a previously proposed rental registry for homeowners who wish to rent their houses. The law, if adopted, would require anyone renting their home to register with the town, and would impose steep fines, and possibly jail time, on repeat offenders.

When the rental registry was first proposed last year, it was met with substantial resistance from residents and was shelved. But with the growing outcry over gangs of young partiers stuffing into rentals in Montauk, the Town Board members said they would like to find a new way to approach the law so that it could be used by ordinance officers and town attorneys to better enforce code requirements.

The biting fines and requirements of accountability of landlords for occupancy of their property in the proposed registry would help crack down on the group rentals, but Town Board members said they want to avoid some of the more burdensome requirements on those homeowners who are not violating the main restrictions on occupancy and short-term rentals.

The board discussed the resurrection of the law on Tuesday but has not proposed adoption of the previous versions. Town Board members Kathee Burke-Gonzalez and Fred Overton will be working with town attorneys to tailor the law to better suit the level of control the town wants to exert on rental properties.

“The most important thing is to give you the tool to deal with violations that are occurring,” Supervisor Larry Cantwell said. “But also make it as easy to comply with as possible.”