A series of planning sessions to chart the future of East Hampton Town’s five hamlets began last week, with Springs and Wainscott leading the charge.

Unlike the town’s other hamlets, Springs has no central business district, so consultants working on the plans had to broaden their scope to include the places where people go for services and through which they must travel. They had also realized after initial discussions that residents were “really concerned about wider issues, like water and taxation,” said Peter Flinker of Dodson and Flinker, one of the firms hired by the town to learn “what you’d like us to explore, and where there are particular opportunities,” and to hear about “areas of agreement and disagreement. We’re not here to give you some preconceived notion of what you need,” Mr. Flinker said.

Springs has other unique factors, the consultant said in presenting its demographics last Thursday. Of all the hamlets, Springs saw the greatest increase in population between 2000 and 2010, a 33-percent jump, and has the largest number of residences occupied year round, at just over 53 percent. The population, according to a 2014 count, is 5,855, larger than any other hamlet’s. While it has numerous recreational sites, Springs is the hamlet with the second-lowest amount of open space.

Home prices have risen by 215 percent in Springs since 1999, but the median family income has gone up only 43 percent. The hamlet, because of the lack of commercial zoning and the number of students in the Springs School, has the highest tax rate in the town. Under current zoning, 1,677 more housing units could be built.

Traffic statistics startled many at the meeting: 16,371 vehicles a day were counted at the southwestern end of Three Mile Harbor Road near East Hampton Village, not far from the 18,930 vehicles a day logged on the Montauk Highway in Wainscott.

Residents of the community spoke up in a strong chorus last Thursday against inviting more growth or changing the character of their hamlet. The consultants presented some options, including plans for safe walking and bike routes, reshaping the hamlet’s limited neighborhood business area over time, and creating a maritime walking district at the head of Three Mile Harbor.

By connecting the area to trails going to and through the nearby Lester preserve at Soak Hides, “there’s a real opportunity to make a wonderful public park where you can walk around,” Mr. Flinker said.

Harry Dodson, Mr. Flinker’s partner, outlined some possible new uses for the Bistrian sand pit off Springs-Fireplace Road, just outside the Springs border. It could provide a parking area for contractors whose work trucks are now based in residential neighborhoods, a subject of recent conflict and several attempts at legislation to limit it. It could also offer space to more construction-related businesses, so contractors could get supplies without traveling into town, reducing ­Continued from A1

traffic on the roads, Mr. Dodson said.

Potential modifications to streets in order to accommodate bike paths and sidewalks prompted an extended discussion.

“It would be really nice to know that I could enjoy my neighborhood without taking my life in my hands,” said Kristi Hood, the Springs General Store’s proprietor. Bike paths would also serve many community members whose bicycles are their primary transportation, she said.

But another speaker questioned whether biking routes would be used by permanent residents or mostly by part-timers or visitors, and others said that widening the streets would create an undesirable urban or suburban look, though it was agreed that traffic and pedestrian safety was a concern.

The cluster of commercial entities on Fort Pond Boulevard near Springs-Fireplace Road came in for prolonged discussion. Describing the cluster as “a variety of different uses” in buildings that are “a hodgepodge of architectural styles . . . not too well laid out,” Mr. Flinker suggested that “it doesn’t work very well functionally, in terms of circulation, and it doesn’t look very good.”

“What can these places evolve into?” he asked. “How can they be better? Should they grow, and if they do grow what should they grow into?”

He showed a drawing depicting a possible reconfiguration of the stores and other businesses. It drew immediate negative reaction.

“We like it the way it is.”

“No, we don’t want it.”

“We’re going to have mini-malls,” people called out. “It’s not Springs.”

The town could adopt a master plan for the area with a commercial “node,” Mr. Flinker said, where residents could gather and avail themselves of services. It would provide for off-street parking and other aesthetic improvements, he said. “All of that is possible with forethought. It’s not likely to happen if we don’t think about it.”

But some were mistrustful. “This is increasing the commercial footprint, and I don’t want that,” one person said.

“The intent is not to expand the commercial development. It’s only to encourage a higher level of design,” said Mr. Flinker. The drawing he displayed was only to illustrate that idea, he said, and not a specific proposal. “You already have them, and they’re not going anywhere,” he said, but the question is, “Do you have a desire to guide the character of future development?”

“I think being open-minded, not just saying we want what it always was . . . I think we need to think outside the box, instead of just saying it’s going to stay the way it is, because it’s not,” said Ms. Hood. “We have the opportunity to set the pattern for the future. You could get out of your car and walk to one or two shops.”

Rameshwar Das agreed that changes should be considered. “I think what is there is dangerous, dysfunctional, it’s ugly, and it’s pretty disjointed, and it would be very nice to improve it.”

“Wouldn’t it be nice . . . getting a cup of coffee, having a seat,” M.J. Arceri said. “It doesn’t have to be cookie-cutter.”

An “emerald necklace” concept, creating links among trails through the hamlet and beyond, was more generally acceptable. “What we’re trying to do is really create a robust network that connects every neighborhood with key destination centers,” Mr. Flinker said.

Elements of the Springs economy under consideration, he said, include the number of home-based businesses in the community, whether permitted or under the radar.

In sessions on Wainscott Friday and Saturday, a desire to create a more inviting feeling and a community identity along Montauk Highway came to the fore. Residents worked with the consultants on how to create a more inviting, walkable hamlet center along the highway, akin to the downtowns in other hamlets, using models and large maps of Wainscott buildings.

Planting streetside trees and creating more parking behind the strip of highway businesses, with walkways for pedestrians, were among ideas that everyone seemed to agree upon. The post office could be incorporated into the concentration of businesses on the north side of the highway for more of a village feel, it was suggested.

“Form-based codes” that control the architecture and configuration of buildings, and how they relate to the street, could help to shape Wainscott’s future look, Mr. Flinker said. Design ideas can be incorporated into zoning and other town legislation “so it ends up being what you want instead of just a hodgepodge,” he said.

The acreage at the Wainscott “pit,” the site of Wainscott Sand and Gravel — which is privately owned but primarily undeveloped — could present a problem-solving opportunity and a space for a mixed-use village area that could include housing, he said. And perhaps the landowner, John Tintle, could be convinced to replace some of the industrial uses on the land if the community came up with an “exciting” proposal.

The redevelopment of the former Star Room nightclub property, where a car wash has been proposed, is of concern to many in Wainscott, participants said. Perhaps the town could enact a short-term development moratorium until the hamlet plan is completed, Sara Davison suggested.

“This will be an incremental revolution,” Mr. Flinker said. “A lot will be done by private [entities] working within guidelines. You’re really shaping the DNA that’s going to guide the growth of this place over the next 50 years. We don’t know how fast it will happen, but we know that you can shape it.”

Incorporating data from traffic, economic, and other analyses, the consultants will prepare draft hamlet plans for presentation to the town board in several months, after which public discussion will resume. Comments can be sent to [email protected]

Public planning sessions focusing on East Hampton will begin on Wednesday at 2:30 p.m. with a walking tour, meeting in front of the North Main Street I.G.A. It will be followed with a 6:30 p.m. discussion that night at the East Hampton Post of the American Legion, on the highway in Amagansett, and a presentation of ideas, also at the Legion, next Thursday night at 6:30.

Sessions on Amagansett will begin on Friday, June 3, with a walking tour leaving from the Amagansett Library at 10:30 a.m., followed by a 6:30 p.m. public workshop at Legion Hall, and a workshop there from 9 a.m. to noon on

Memorial Day weekend had not yet arrived, but crowds and noise were already on the minds of two residents of Springs on Monday at a meeting of the East Hampton Town Trustees, who manage many of the town’s beaches and waterways on behalf of the public. Penny Helm and Susan Winkler addressed the board separately, urging new limits on the use of beaches. The trustees, some more forcefully than others, opposed additional restrictions.

Ms. Helm lamented what she called excessive vehicles on the small crescent beach at Maidstone Park, just inside Three Mile Harbor. She said up to 20 vehicles crowd the small area on summer days, and described instances in which she came out of the water to find one parked on either side of her blanket and beach chair. Saying vehicles are a safety hazard, harm the environment, and change the beach’s character for the worse, she proposed a defined area in which they would be prohibited. A fence had been removed several years ago, possibly for dredging equipment, she said, and asked that it be replaced with an opening only wide enough for pedestrian access.

Diane McNally, until the last election the longtime clerk of the trustees, said the area Ms. Helm referred to was not a designated public bathing beach. Referring to the town-owned bayfront beach on the other side of Maidstone Park Road, where vehicles are prohibited, she said, with apparent irony, “We could take it to the town and ask how much of the 3,000 linear feet of beach — where vehicles and dogs are prohibited from accessing — they’d be willing to give up.” That nearby beach, she said, “is open and available to the public year-round, and it’s lifeguarded.”

Francis Bock, the clerk, said the trustees would find out if a fence had been removed. “At that point we should continue the conversation,” he said. He did, however, question the need for two vehicle accesses at the small beach inside the harbor. Eliminating one, he said, “is not denying anybody access with a vehicle” but a matter of controlling traffic.

Tim Bock, one of the trustees, took exception to the idea that vehicles on beaches were a hazard. “Everybody keeps coming in saying it’s a safety issue, yet there’s never been a safety problem. No one has ever gotten hurt. I don’t know why we’re even entertaining this.” Vehicles have become more numerous in the last few years, Ms. Helm replied.

Ms. Winkler said that the beaches should be a respite from the town’s “huge traffic problem” and a place without “trucks and gasoline fumes and oil and exhaust blowing in my face,” nor dogs, loud radios, or catered events. “I would like no motor vehicles and no dogs on the beach at any time from Memorial Day to Labor Day — three months of peace and quiet for the taxpaying beach lovers.”

Beach ordinances, Ms. McNally said, took into consideration all user groups, and no one group “should have any more privilege than another.” Ms. Winkler responded, saying, “I just think we have gone overboard with this, and we’re ruining the beaches. . . . Somebody’s always mad at somebody, but what about all the rest of us who aren’t trying to do anything except go there?”

The trustees also heard from Sara Davison, executive director of the Friends of Georgica Pond Foundation, a group of property owners, who have a project underway intended to restore the pond to health. Ryan Ruggiero and Trevor Adams, college students who have been hired to operate an aquatic harvester that will remove macroalgae from the pond this summer, received initial training on Monday, Ms. Davison said. The project is meant to determine if the removal of macroalgae, which releases nitrogen and phosphorous as it decays, is an effective way to deter the blue-green algal blooms that caused the trustees to close the pond to crabbing and warn against exposure to its water in the summers of 2014 and ’15. The harvester is to operate Monday through Friday for up to seven hours per day.

Christopher Gobler of Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, whom the trustees and the foundation have engaged to test the pond’s water quality, has done chemical and metal analysis of the macroalgae and determined that it meets standards for use as compost. When macroalgae is offloaded from the harvester, it will be delivered to the town’s recycling center, Ms. Davison said.

The Hampton Jitney reported Friday that many of its Memorial Day trips sold out at least two weeks ago and that it has seen increased demand for trips to Sag Harbor and Montauk.

The company, which carries more than 600,000 passengers per year, does not release specific ridership numbers. However, Nina Bracovic, the marketing manager for the Jitney's passenger services department, said that this weekend is looking "very busy as usual."

"Our passenger counts are about the same as last year, though the lower fuel prices definitely encourage more people to drive," Ms. Bracovic said.

Sold-out notifications awaited would-be passengers on the Hampton Jitney's website, or they were told by a representative if they telephoned for reservations, Ms. Bracovic said. The Jitney doesn't use waiting lists, but rather allows walk-on passengers if there is any room on board.

To help meet demand, she said, the company recently boosted the number of routes in its Ambassador service -- kind of like an upscale sibling to the Jitney's traditional rides -- and has added about 20 vehicles to its fleet over the last two years.

"We've made a large investment in our on board Wi-Fi, which is free, to keep up with customer demand," Ms. Bracovic said. "We go through close to three terabytes of data per month on board, which is a tremendous amount of usage by our customers."

To accommodate weekenders, the Long Island Rail Road scheduled 10 extra eastbound trains for Friday, including connections to the Montauk line, across its various branches, it said in a statement on Thursday. The railroad will operate on a weekend schedule Saturday and Sunday and on a holiday schedule on Monday.

East Hampton School District officials confirmed Friday that senior pranks carried out by high school students on Thursday were serious in nature and would lead to consequences to be decided by Tuesday.

Richard Burns, the district superintendent, and J.P. Foster, the school board president, declined to elaborate on the specifics of the pranks or the possible extent of disciplinary actions. They did say, however, that no animals were harmed during the incidents.

"The administration and the police are investigating the situation," Mr. Burns and Mr. Foster said in a joint statement. "There will be consequences for those involved. We are all deeply disappointed."

Mr. Burns said that a lot of "chatter" on social media is exaggerating what actually took place. "It's serious, though, I don't want to minimize that," he said by phone.

School is closed Monday for the Memorial Day holiday. This story will be updated as more information becomes available.

A New York State Supreme Court jury concluded this week that the East Hampton School District should pay Sandpebble Builders about $750,750 related to the construction contract the two signed more than 10 years ago for major renovations to all three school buildings in East Hampton.

Richard Burns, East Hampton's superintendent, announced the outcome in a press release Friday. He later said by email East Hampton does not plan to appeal the decision and that there is sufficient money available as encumbered funds in the school's budget to pay Sandpebble the sum that the jury determined the district owes.

In a lawsuit filed in 2006 that alleged the contract had been wrongfully terminated, Sandpebble Builders, which is based in Southampton, had been seeking total damages of $3.7 million plus accrued interest. The East Hampton administration, which signed a new contract with a different construction company when the scope of the work increased dramatically, countered with a lawsuit of its own to limit the damages that Sandpebble could collect.

According to Mr. Burns, Justice Jerry Garguilo will now schedule a conference with both sides "to discuss the details of the decision by the jury." After many years of delays, jury selection began on May 9; the trial lasted approximately 11 days.

In January, Mr. Burns said the school district had spent about $2.8 million in legal fees since 2006. An updated figure was not immediately available. 

Public comments must be submitted by Friday to the Army Corps of Engineers on a draft environmental assessment of its long-planned project at Montauk Point, which would add boulders to an existing revetment in an effort to protect the Montauk Lighthouse, a National Historic Landmark, from encroaching erosion.

An estimated $14.6 million federal project was originally authorized in 2006 and was funded by Congress in a post-Hurricane Sandy disaster relief act. The plan was re-evaluated after Sandy and revised.

It now calls for the addition of 15-ton boulders on top of the existing revetment along 840 feet of shore, in order, according to an Army Corps document, to provide "protection for the most vulnerable portion of the bluff that would directly endanger the lighthouse complex should it fail."

The lighthouse and surrounding land belong to the Montauk Historical Society, which took ownership from the Coast Guard in 1996.

Details about the plan can be found at online.

Comments may be sent to Robert Smith, Project Biologist

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New York District, Attention CENAN-PL-E

26 Federal Plaza, Rm. 2131, New York, NY 10278

Or emailed to [email protected].

Russell Morgan, the John M. Marshall Elementary School’s newly appointed assistant principal, began his career far from East Hampton. The Manhattan resident worked in real estate and marketing after graduating with a dual degree in finance and real estate from Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business.

“After working in those fields for several years, I was left feeling unfulfilled and in need of a change,” Mr. Morgan said by email. “My most rewarding work to that point had been as a summer camp administrator, where I had the opportunity to strengthen character and impact lives by helping campers to cope with adversity, foster independence, and become responsible participants in the community.”

He went on to earn master’s degrees in special education and general education from Touro College and a school building leadership certificate from St. John’s University, and on May 17 the East Hampton School Board unanimously appointed Mr. Morgan as the new elementary school assistant principal.

He has experience as a special education teacher and currently serves as the math coordinator for kindergarten through eighth grade at the Churchill School, a private special education school in Manhattan. At John Marshall, Mr. Morgan will earn a salary of $125,000 and will have a four-year probationary term when he starts on July 1. He said he plans to relocate to East Hampton. He replaces Dennis Sullivan, who submitted his resignation in March, effective at the end of the school year.

Beth Doyle, the elementary school principal, said she feels his background in math will complement her love for literacy.

“He has a wealth of knowledge about instruction, he’s really smart, and really thoughtful,” she said. “Every person I spoke to with respect to his references raved about how awesome he is with kids and how hard he works, and how much he goes above and beyond. . . . I think he’s going to be great.

Meeting on Tuesday night, the Southampton Town Board withdrew a town-initiated application on the Bridgehampton Gateway project, a mixed-use planned development district that drew concerns from community groups. Separately, members enacted a moratorium on any new P.D.D.s while they review the controversial code that essentially allows the town to amend zoning if a project offers a community benefit.

“What a difference a few weeks makes,” Supervisor Jay Schneiderman said of what he called “a dramatic turn of events” since the last public hearing on the project, located across from the Bridgehampton Commons, in early May. In a letter to the board dated May 19, Carol Konner, the principal owner of the Montauk Highway properties that the town wanted to rezone from highway business to a mix of commercial, retail, and residential, withdrew her support for the plan.

Mrs. Konner and her son Gregg Konner had been cooperative after the town revived plans for a P.D.D. three years ago, even though she had plans underway to build an Equinox gym, an allowable use under the current highway business zoning. Her lawyer, Anthony B. Tohill, said his client had a contractual obligation to move forward with that project.

“I can’t see doing anything with it without a willing property owner,” Mr. Schneiderman said at the start of Tuesday’s meeting.

The P.D.D. proposal would have allowed for a commercial complex of 80,000 square feet with 20 affordable apartments, mostly one-bedroom, set above commercial uses such as an Equinox. Four market-rate condos would be built in the back of the property, away from the highway.

Despite early support, the Bridgehampton Citizens Advisory Committee voted against the project late last month. While it had strong opposition, it also had support, particularly for the affordable housing component.

Kevin McAllister of Defend H20 spoke in support Tuesday night of the project’s $2.4 million state-of-the-art sewage treatment plant proposed by Mrs. Konner, who said she would allow neighboring houses to hook into it at no charge as long as they paid the hook-up fee. “I was very pleased to see that wastewater was going to be addressed to the highest achievable levels employing a system that gets down to single digits,” he said. If the properties are developed under the current zoning, he worried that the system would be deficient, because of the county’s management of sewage. “Kellis Pond is an important watershed, like every other one,” he said. “Let’s be real about what the implications are to various water bodies.”

Mr. Schneiderman said he had raised an interesting point, since the sewage treatment facility Mrs. Konner was willing to install went beyond county requirements, and it was unclear whether the town would be able to require a sewage treatment facility at all at Equinox.

“That’s the thousand-dollar question,” Mr. McAllister said.

“This is a mixed bag,” the supervisor said. “In one way, I’m thrilled to have off my plate a controversial proposal. But there were some interesting aspects, including the state-of-the-art sewage treatment.”

“The old adage, be careful what you wish for,” Mr. McAllister continued. “I think it’s appropriate here. There’s a great deal of uncertainty and potentially further degradation to Kellis Pond because of the inability to perhaps control some of the components of the development.”

The town board officially closed the public hearing and then unanimously withdrew the P.D.D. proposal.

The town has been working on a possible planned development district for the properties since 1999. However, after several failed attempts, a plan was submitted for an Equinox on 10 acres, the eastern portion of the 13.3 acres owned by two different limited liability corporations. Even though a gym is an as-of-right use, its size would require a variance. Konner Friedlander L.L.C. had proposed two buildings to the Southampton Town zoning board of appeals, of 13,000 and 14,000 square feet, for Equinox. The code does not allow buildings or uses greater than 15,000 square feet in highway business zoning. 

If Mrs. Konner decides to move forward with that plan, she would have to reactivate the Z.B.A. application and go to the planning board for approval as well, Kyle Collins, the town’s planning and development administrator, told the board.

Later in the meeting, the board, in a 3-2 vote, approved a moratorium on further P.D.D.s while it reviews the law. Councilwoman Christine Scalera and Councilman Stan Glinka cast “no” votes. Mr. Glinka said he thought more than one public hearing should have been held on the proposal, and that the town was handling P.D.D.s on a case-by-case basis sufficiently. “The approach that we’ve been taking all along, looking at each individual project that comes in front of us and listening to what the community feels, it ultimately ends up working itself out, like we saw, prime example, with the Bridgehampton Gateway,” he said.

Mr. Schneiderman said the moratorium sends a message to the community and future applicants that the law needs to be changed. “I think this is in the interest of good planning to say to those applications that haven’t come through: Wait. Let us study the law in good faith, as quick as possible,” he said.

A “blue-ribbon panel of stakeholders,” everyone from environmentalists to developers, will be established to review the law and offer the town board recommendations on how to fix it or whether it needs to be repealed.

Safe Harbor Retreat, a California company that operates the Dunes, an in-house treatment center in East Hampton’s Northwest Woods for persons recovering from drug or alcohol addiction, has asked the United States Supreme Court to review a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit decision rejecting its lawsuit claiming the Town of East Hampton has violated the federal Fair Housing Act.

Joseph Campolo of Campolo, Middleton & McCormick, a Long Island firm with an office in Bridgehampton, said on Tuesday that the town’s actions against the Dunes are discriminatory because as recovering addicts its residents are considered disabled, a protected class. The Second Circuit ruling is out of step, he said, with decisions by other circuit courts.

The treatment center is on Bull Run in a neighborhood zoned for residential use. The town contends it needs a special permit to operate there, and an application for a permit is now working its way through the site review process in the East Hampton Town Planning Board.

According to Mr. Campolo, site plan review  should not be necessary. “We haven’t even gotten to the merits. We are very confident, once we get to that point, we will prevail,” he said.

The Dunes had previously asked the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals to overturn a 2010 decision by Tom Preiato, then chief building inspector, that the treatment center needed a permit to operate in a residential area. Its appeal was turned down in June of 2013 by a 4-to-1 vote.

Safe Harbor then sued the town in the U.S. Court for the Eastern District, which dismissed the case in March 2015 saying it was “unripe” in that the company had not pursued all administrative remedies.

The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld that ruling, stating Safe Harbor “had failed to apply for the special permit as a semi-public facility notwithstanding the building inspector’s and zoning board’s invitations that it do so.”

Mr. Campolo’s appeal to the Supreme Court states that having different sets of standards in circuit courts sets up situations that could dictate where a handicapped person resides. It also cites  as well precedent from other circuit courts, in which group homes were granted single family status. “The Fair Housing Act is a federal law requiring uniform interpretation,” according to the appeal. It also cites the need for such a facility.

On the phone Tuesday, Mr. Campolo bristled at a suggestion that because of the high cost of treatment at the Dunes, reported to be about $45,000 a month, the facility serves only the rich. He said the Dunes has provided services worth more than $2 million, in scholarships to East Hampton residents.

Mr. Campolo complained that the town was acting in response to political pressure from neighbors of the facility, who had been “fear-mongering.” The Dunes, which was opened in 2009, had operated for ten months without a hitch, he said, until The New York Post published an article that year revealing its existence.

Mr. Campolo said he believed the Supreme Court would decide whether to hear Safe Harbor’s appeal by the start of its next term this fall.

Two Montauk bars, one old, one relatively new, were the backdrop early Saturday morning for the arrest of Gustavo Bonilla-Bonilla, 41, on felony charges of cocaine possession.

Grace Peterson, an 11-year veteran of the East Hampton Town Police Department who previously served 13 years with the New York Police Department, pulled into the parking lot of Liar’s Saloon on West Lake Drive early Saturday morning after a dispatcher took a call from the bar. The call proved to be unfounded, and the officer returned to her marked car, which was parked behind a 1997 green Toyota Camry. As she recorded the call on her pad, she noticed an unusual amount of foot traffic between the bar and the Toyota in front of her. “The location is known for drug activity both in and around the establishment,” the officer later noted in her report.

She stopped writing and watched as a man left Liar’s and walked over to the Toyota, getting into the passenger seat. Three or four minutes later, according to the report, he returned to the bar. A second man paid a similar short visit to the Camry. When a third man began traveling the same path from Liar’s, Officer Peterson stepped out of her car. Upon seeing her, he swerved from his path.

“The officer then made inquiry,” Capt. Chris Anderson said Monday, “as to what the occupant of the Toyota’s business was.” Mr. Bonilla’s business, the officer determined, was selling cocaine, in small orange plastic packets.

Officer Peterson did a test on one of the packets, which was in plain sight on the top of the middle console. “Field-tested positive for the presence of cocaine,” she noted in her report.

She searched the car and reported finding 17 more packets. Mr. Bonilla was placed under arrest, charged with possessing over a half ounce of the narcotic and with possession with intent to sell.

“Good police work,” Captain Anderson said.

At police headquarters in Wainscott Mr. Bonilla told detectives how he came to be in possession of the cocaine. It began, he said, on Main Street in downtown Montauk last Thursday night.

“I walked into the bathroom at the Gig Shack and saw a few guys doing cocaine,” he stated. “I said I wanted some, and this guy [ . . . ] sold me a bag for $20.”

On Friday afternoon, he said, he ran into the man again, this time on Carl Fisher Plaza. The man offered to sell him all his packaged cocaine. “I’ll give you a good price, because I am headed to Florida tomorrow and I can’t travel with it,” Mr. Bonilla said he was told.

The two arranged to meet at the docks, where Mr. Bonilla said he paid the man $280 for 14 packets of cocaine.

 At his arraignment Saturday after noon, though he had given police an address of 8 Duryea Road, Montauk, as his residence, he told Justice Steven Tekulsky that he was homeless. Justice Tekulsky set bail at $50,000, which had not been met as of Tuesday. Mr. Bonilla is to be brought back to East Hampton from the county jail in Riverside today, to await further court action.