Tuckahoe Nightclub Could Become Cannabis Shop, to Neighbors' Relief

The owners of the Tuckahoe building that for decades has played host to a series of popular nightclubs — most recently, Club Ultra — have proposed converting the property into a retail cannabis shop.

The proposal has been hesitantly supported by neighbors who, while expressing outrage at the chaotic and slovenly conditions that have swirled around Club Ultra in recent years, said they would welcome the property being converted to a use that has strictly limited hours and security protocols as pot shops do in New York State.

“This puts us in the uncomfortable position of either supporting this venture or agreeing to continue with the situation as it stands,” said Maia Yedin, who lives in the Southampton Pointe development across Tuckahoe Lane from the nightclub property. “[Co-owner John Flanagan] and his team do not deserve this license … but the residents of Southampton Point do. We deserve the peace and quiet and security that the trappings of having a licensed cannabis dispensary across the street promised us. We deserve the increased enforcement that this automatically ensures.”

Yedin and other residents of Southampton Pointe told stories of the noise from the club shaking their homes in the wee hours of the morning, of sprawling brawls drawing large police responses — including a recent one in which officers drew their guns out of concern about the violence of a fight — and of drunken clubgoers wandering into their neighborhood, using their yards and gardens as bathrooms, breaking windows and even one instance of a bloodied vandal cleansing his wound in the community swimming pool, forcing the cancellation of a 5-year-old’s birthday celebration the next day.

“Since I’ve been here, I’ve cried three times,” said Dawn Magnotta, who bought a unit in Southampton Pointe two years ago as a respite from New York City while she was undergoing treatment for cancer. “What they are doing is not right. I’m literally pleading for my safety.”

The neighbors told of pleading with the owners of the property — who ran the Tavern nightclub there in the 1990s and early 2000s but have leased it to other operators for the last 15 years — essentially washing their hands of the problems that Club Ultra has caused.

“Their stance has been: We were here first, too bad for you,” Yedin said.

But the cannabis shop would, ostensibly, bring an end to all that. The New York State Office of Cannabis Management sets firm regulations on the licensing and operation of the nonmedical retail shops — including that they must close by 9 p.m. and must have in-store security.

The Southampton Town Planning Board has been reviewing a pre-application submission by Deep Blue Sea LLC, a partnership of the property owners and an established pot shop in New York City that has applied to the state for a license. An attorney for the company said they expect their license to come up for approval this fall.

The proposal would be to remodel and convert the 4,000-square-foot building — a former farm barn — into the retail shop. The details of the interior and exterior design and landscaping and lighting and parking plans would be worked out when and if the group files a formal application with the town.

The property is zoned highway business, which allows retail uses, but cannabis shops require a special permit approval by the Planning Board.

East Hampton Town opted out of the state’s retail pot sales law when it was adopted by the state in 2021, Southampton Town did not. But no private retail pot shops have opened in the town yet outside of the Shinnecock Nation territory, less than a mile from the proposed Deep Blue Sea shop.

A representative of the company, Danielle Durant, said that Deep Blue Sea will hire local employees and source its products locally when possible and will support local charities. And, perhaps most importantly to those with raised eyebrows, will mean the end of the nightclub ventures.

“The dispensary will be less of an impact in terms of noise and earlier operating hours,” she said.

The Planning Board closed the hearing on the pre-submission conference and will offer guidance to the business at a future meeting.