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The Quogue Club. DANA SHAW
Six neighbors of the Quogue Club at Hallock House wrote to the members of the Quogue Village Board on May 26 asking that they reconsider their 4-0 decision to allow the club to offer outdoor dining even after COVID-related restrictions on indoor dining are lifted, but Mayor Peter Sartorius says there is no reason to give it another look.
“We each looked at the letter carefully, and to be honest, we don’t see any new areas of fact or law that hadn’t been raised before or hadn’t been considered in rendering the original decision, so we are not going to reconsider that decision or rehear it,” the mayor said during the board’s Friday, June 18, virtual meeting. “Right now, we are in a test period that goes up through July 31, at least.”
Outdoor food service had been prohibited at the site, 47 Quogue Street, for 40 years under a stipulation of settlement, but the Zoning Board of Appeals permitted outdoor dining at the private dining club in 2020 due to the pandemic and social distancing concerns. The club then asked for permission to offer outdoor dining seasonally on a permanent basis, which neighbors objected to. On May 21, the Village Board voted to take the purview over the matter away from the Zoning Board of Appeals and to permit outdoor dining on a trial basis. Though four of the five Village Board members are also charter members of the Quogue Club, only Robert Treuhold, the club’s president, recused himself from the vote.
The trial allowed the club to have outdoor dining seven days a week through September 18 and then on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays preceding holidays through October 10 as long as COVID-related restrictions on indoor dining capacity continued. However, on June 15, Governor Andrew Cuomo lifted all remaining capacity limits on dining establishments.
With the restrictions no longer in play, the trial will continue to run through July 31, allowing outdoor service on Friday and Saturday nights on the club’s back patio and on any night on the front porch. At the end of the trial, if the Village Board determines that noise from the diners is not a disturbance, dining will be allowed to continue on the back patio Thursdays through Sundays and on any night on the front porch.
The six neighbors wrote in their letter to the Village Board that the mayor, himself being a Quogue Club charter member and having advocated for outdoor dining to the Zoning Board of Appeals, should have recused himself from the vote. The other two board members who are charter members of the club, Randy Cardo and Ted Necarsulmer, also should have refrained from voting due to their conflict of interest, the letter states, and “their participation in the decision renders it invalid and must be withdrawn.”
The neighbors further wrote that a variance from the Zoning Board of Appeals should be required for the expanded use of the site, and it disputed that allowing the private club to offer outdoor dining was a community benefit. They asked the Village Board to suspend its May 21 decision until the matter could be reconsidered, but did not get their wish.
