The Southampton Town Board announced Tuesday evening that it will no longer fight the establishment of a religious boundary in two western hamlets.
The decision, which was presented as a walk-on resolution, will almost certainly allow for the expansion of the Orthodox Jewish zone, known as an eruv, so that it can extend beyond the limits of Westhampton Beach Village to also include the hamlets of Quiogue and Westhampton.
On June 30, State Supreme Court Justice Joseph Farneti overturned an August 2013 decision by the Southampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals stating that the establishment of an eruv would violate the town’s sign ordinance. An eruv is a religious safe haven that effectively turns the outdoor space within its boundaries into indoor space under Orthodox law. Within the eruv, adherent Jews can push and carry objects that would otherwise be forbidden on Saturday, the Sabbath, including wheelchairs, strollers and keys.
The East End Eruv Association, or EEEA, was seeking to install lechis—thin, translucent PVC strips that designate the borders of the eruv—on utility poles in the two hamlets, but the ZBA ruled that the markers constituted signs and were thus forbidden.
Last month, Southampton Town Attorney Tiffany Scarlato said she planned on filing a notice of appeal, which would buy the Town Board time to decide if it wanted to formally challenge Justice Farneti’s ruling. However, Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst said the Town Board felt it was time to cut its losses, a decision that will enable the EEEA to expand the eruv that was established in Westhampton Beach last summer.
“Well, we felt that we had made our point, which was solely based on the interpretation by our Building Department that it represented a violation to our sign code, and that is really the only reason we opposed it,” Ms. Throne-Holst wrote in an email. “But the court struck that down, so we made the decision not to appeal and to bring to an end what has been a very long and costly piece of litigation that was, again, solely geared toward the interpretation of our sign laws.”
Ms. Scarlato declined to get into the specifics of the settlement on Wednesday morning, noting that it is not yet finalized. She did note that once all of the other cases are dropped, the town will no longer be at risk of having to pay restitution to the EEEA for attorney and court fees—as had been previously threatened by the plaintiff.
“I think it’s a good end to this litigation for all sides,” she said.
Southampton Town and the villages of Quogue and Westhampton Beach have been embroiled in lawsuits with the EEEA since 2011. In addition to not appealing Justice Farneti’s ruling, the town also will drop its ongoing lawsuit in U.S. District Court. In that case, the town argued that the establishment of an eruv would violate the First Amendment’s establishment clause, which forbids municipalities from endorsing one religion over another.
Robert Sugarman, one of the attorneys who has represented the EEEA pro bono in its effort to establish an eruv in western Southampton Town, said he had not seen the Town Board’s resolution as of Wednesday morning. He declined to comment, saying he would wait until the town and the EEEA have a signed agreement and file it with the courts.
The Quogue Village Board is still embroiled in litigation with the EEEA over that board’s decision not to allow the lechis, citing a similar argument made by the town’s zoning board, that the lechis are equivalent to signs and not permitted.
Kyle Campbell on Aug 26, 2015