Despite the objections of the East Hampton and Southampton Town Trustees, the East Hampton Town Board, many South Fork residents, and one very determined activist, the Suffolk County Legislature voted on Dec. 1 to approve the use of methoprene, a mosquito larvicide, in the Department of Public Works 2016 vector control effort.

Kevin McAllister, founder and president of Defend H2O and the former Peconic Baykeeper, had addressed the Oct. 21 meeting of the Legislature’s Council on Environmental Quality, the Nov. 23 meeting of its public works committee, and the Dec. 1 meeting of the full Legislature, arguing each time that methoprene adversely affects non-target aquatic species including lobster and crabs and is unnecessary on the South Fork, where no cases of West Nile virus, which is transmitted by mosquitoes, were reported in 2015.

The Department of Public Works vector control division has been using methoprene, along with another larvicide, BTi, for several years, but its methods must be approved annually.

“Based on years of documentation I have seen, this has always been about nuisance control” and not a threat to public health, Mr. McAllister said last week. He cited a study by Michael Horst and Anna Walker in the Journal of Crustacean Biology stating that methoprene causes structural and biochemical alterations in larval and adult blue crabs. The study suggested that exposure at minute concentrations reduced the number of successful hatchings and resulted in lethargic behavior in surviving larvae.

Mr. McAllister referred to that study when arguing against the use of methoprene in front of the Council on Environmental Quality, during which he cited the Connecticut General Assembly’s 2013 ban of methoprene and the adulticide resmethrin in coastal areas. Rhode Island, Maine, and New York City have also enacted restrictions. In September, Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut wrote to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo asking that New York follow his state’s lead, citing evidence that pesticide runoff might be contributing to the precipitous decline of lobsters in Long Island Sound.

Dominick Ninivaggi, the vector control division’s superintendent, had attended the meetings at which Mr. McAllister testified. On Tuesday, he said the restrictions in Connecticut “were done at the request of lobster fishermen. There was no scientific evidence presented to justify it. Their own experts testified that it was not justified and not necessary, but they chose to do what they did.”

Mr. McAllister angrily disputed that assertion. “Connecticut didn’t just enact a ban because some fishermen were upset,” he said. “They went through due diligence in substantiating a legislative action that said, ‘We can’t use methoprene in coastal areas.’ Here’s a neighbor, at a state level, saying ‘We’re banning it,’ and we continue to rubber- stamp these work plans that include methoprene. Why and how is Connecticut so different than Suffolk County relative to our coastal areas?”

“What legislatures do,” Mr. Ninivaggi said, “is not really relevant to the decision-making in Suffolk County. Our decision-making is based on looking at the scientific evidence.”

Tyler Armstrong, who will be sworn in as an East Hampton Town Trustee next month would like to see all of the South Fork’s governing bodies deliver a joint message that “We don’t want this.” He believes methoprene endangers the South Fork’s fisheries and “poses a threat to our waters,” he said. Mr. Armstrong said he ran for trustee in part because “I wanted to take steps to increase the amount of shellfish, of life, in our harbors, and I think methoprene is a barrier to that, at least for species like crabs and lobsters. Also, mosquitoes are a food source, a lot of times. I feel it slows development of young fish because it takes away some of their food supply.”

“We’re concerned about nontarget species too, of course,” Mr. Ninivaggi said. “We looked at this very carefully. You have to understand. The concentrations of methoprene that end up in the environment are far below levels shown to impact crustaceans. There is a very substantial margin of safety.”

He said that based on its own assessment as well as those of the federal government and state’s Department of Environmental Conservation, the county had concluded “the risks are very minimal and provide a substantial benefit.” In fact, he said, “It’s a net plus for the program in terms of risk, because one of the things we want to avoid is having to spray residential areas. Using methoprene in salt marshes and being able to get better control reduced the number of mosquitoes reaching residential areas, reducing that treatment.” Overall acreage treated by aerial application of methoprene was 20 percent less in 2015 than in the prior year, he said. “In general, our larval control has been going down.”

Mr. McAllister remains unconvinced, and pledged to continue his effort. “I won’t ever give up,” he said, “and I am confident that at some point in time, maybe this season, methoprene will be removed from their work plan. I can assure you that I will be back before that Legislature to at least remind them, as we get closer to the season, of public sentiment.”

As East Hampton Town’s re-elected supervisor and town board members prepare to be sworn in next week for new terms, the book is mostly closed on the 2015 election season here — the most expensive one in the town’s history.

Total election spending in East Hampton Town topped $650,000, according to campaign finance reports filed with the New York State Board of Elections, and that does not include spending by the East Hampton Town Republican Committee in the final weeks of the campaign. The last reports of the election year, covering Oct. 20 through Nov. 26, were due at the end of November, but as of Tuesday the Republican Committee had not yet filed its final report. (The committee filed that report on Jan. 13; details can be found in an update at the end of this story.)

Even without those numbers, records show that the Republican candidates for town supervisor and town board — Tom Knobel, Lisa Mulhern-Larsen, and Margaret Turner — and the committees supporting them spent nearly $414,000 on the campaign. Well over half of that came from the East Hampton Leadership Council, which was bankrolled almost exclusively by YGB Holdings, an anonymous limited liability company with an address at 767 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. YGB put $257,000 toward the effort to oust the Democratic incumbents. Another L.L.C., MLFC, which lists an address at 546 Fifth Avenue, gave the Leadership Council $25,000.

The Leadership Council threw its money equally behind Mr. Knobel, Ms. Turner, and Ms. Mulhern-Larsen, allocating almost $87,000 for each candidate, much of which was spent on a blitz of 11th-hour campaign mailings.

Ms. Turner and Ms. Mulhern-Larsen each had their own campaign committees. Mr. Knobel did not. All three received additional financial support from the East Hampton Town Republican Committee.

The Democrats — Supervisor Larry Cantwell, Peter Van Scoyoc, and Sylvia Overby — and the committees backing them spent almost $240,000 on the 2015 election. The bulk of Democrats’ spending came from Campaign 2015, the party’s main campaign committee. Mr. Cantwell had his own committee, which spent $50,820, as did Ms. Overby, but her spending was minimal. The East Hampton Town Democratic Committee spent modestly between July and November, but funneled some spending through Campaign 2015. Democrats also got a slight boost from the East Hampton Conservators, a political action committee, and the Quiet Skies Coalition PAC.

Among individual contributors, the Democrats’ heavy hitters between July and November were Katherine Rayner, who gave $16,000, and Janet Ross ($10,000), both of East Hampton and New York City; Anna Gilchrest of Wainscott ($10,000), David Gruber of East Hampton (just under $10,000), and Alec Baldwin of Amagansett and New York ($7,500).

The biggest contributors to the Republicans’ cause were Donald R. Mullen, a part-time East Hampton resident ($47,300), and others who share his West 47th Street address including Anne and Isabelle Mullen ($5,000 each), and the limited liability companies MVRE III, Wilson Ridge Properties, FREI, MFLC, VREI, and MFLC ($5,000 each). In all, $87,300 flowed from 114 West 47th Street into the Republican election effort in East Hampton Town.

MVRE II, with an address of 546 Fifth Avenue, and MVRE, with an address at 15 Brewster Road in Newark, gave $5,000 each, as did HeliFlite Shares, which shares a Newark hangar building with MVRE.

Bonnie Krupinski of East Hampton gave the Republican Committee $15,000 in the home stretch of the campaign. Other top donors to the East Hampton G.O.P. from July onward were David Heller ($10,000), a retired Goldman Sachs executive; Marc Spilker of Garden City and East Hampton ($10,000), president of the private equity firm Apollo Management, and Andy Sabin of Amagansett ($10,000).

--

Update, Feb. 26, 2016: The East Hampton Town Republican Committee filed its final campaign finance disclosure reports for the 2015 election on Jan. 13. The party reported raising $45,099 between Oct. 20 and late November.

The largest donation during that time came from the Helicopter Tourism and Jobs Council of Scottsdale, Az., which gave $16,000 to the East Hampton Republicans on Oct. 26. Although the New York State Board of Elections requires that any contribution or loan in excess of $1,000 that is received less than 11 days before the election be reported within 24 hours, this contribution was not reported until Jan. 13.  

The second largest contributor during that period was Ben Krupinski. The Republican Committee reported that he gave $15,000 on Oct. 26. Although this contribution was also not included in the 24-hour notices, one for the same amount by Mr. Krupinski's wife, Bonnie Krupinski, was reported in the final days before the election and does not appear on the final disclosure report.

The Republican Committee paid out just over $46,000 in the final days leading up to the election and the weeks following it. It transfered $29,000 to the Friends of Amos Goodman to aid in his unsuccessful bid for county legislator, $3,000 to Lisa Mulhern-Larsen's campaign for town board, and $2,000 to Margaret Turner's town board campaign. 

The East Hampton Town Board will hold its annual organizational meeting at Town Hall on Tuesday at 10 a.m. and move ahead at a meeting next Thursday at 6:30 p.m., also at Town Hall, with hearings on matters including community preservation fund land and development-rights purchases.

The largest parcel under consideration is a 35-acre tract between Long Lane and Route 114 in East Hampton, owned by Whitmore Nurseries. The town proposes purchasing the development rights to the property at a cost of $3.2 million to preserve its open space and agricultural use.

Also using the community preservation fund, the town proposes purchasing two Montauk properties: 7.5 acres at 31 Upland Road from Joseph Frizone, for $1.5 million, and a .18-acre lot at 40 Caswell Road from Steven and Gino Antonini, for $295,000, both to preserve as open space.

Public comment also will be heard on eliminating a law that prohibits parking at all times on School Street near the Springs School, instead allowing one-hour parking in that area Mondays through Fridays from 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. One-hour parking had been allowed under a law that expired in September. The town board is seeking to reinstate that provision, stating in a resolution that it did so with “feedback from the East Hampton Town Police Department and the Springs School.”

Hearings also will be held on the adoption of an annual management and stewardship plan for properties purchased with the community preservation fund, on the installation of a stop sign for northbound traffic at the intersection of Davis and Laurel Drives in Montauk, and on a grant of a scenic and conservation easement at 5 McElnea Drive in East Hampton.

Visiting hours will be held on Friday from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m. at the First Baptist Church in Bridgehampton for Daisy C. Bowe of East Hampton, who died on Tuesday at the age of 61.

Ms. Bowe, a graduate of the Bridgehampton School who returned there to become an elementary teacher for more than 30 years, had a positive impact on hundreds of students over the years, and she had been named teacher of the year multiple times.

"She was an extremely remarkable person who touched so many young lives, and made such an impression on so many young people . . . and was loved by many," said John Wyche, a former member of the Bridgehampton School Board and an ad representative for The Star who knew Ms. Bowe for some 50 years.

A funeral will be held at the church on Saturday at 1 p.m., followed by burial at Edgewood Cemetery in Bridgehampton.

The East Hampton High School boys basketball team, which won the Eastern Long Island Approved Basketball Officials' Holiday Classic tournament, whose games were played at Suffolk Community College-Selden on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, are "ready for the league season," the Bonackers' coach, Bill McKee, said on the eve of the new year.

East Hampton dispatched Riverhead 69-49 in a first-round matchup, and prevailed 61-47 over Southampton in the championship game.

Brandon Kennedy-Gay, who led the Bonackers with 30 points the first night and 24 the second, was named the tourney's most valuable player. He and two of his teammates, Kyle McKee, a senior guard, as is Kennedy-Gay, and the sophomore point guard, Jack Reese, who with aplomb withstood Southampton's pressure, turning the ball over only twice in the final, were named to the all-tournament team.

"It was tied 27-27 at halftime," the elder McKee said, "and it was 47-45 us with about three minutes to go. After I'd called timeout, there were three critical loose balls and we made shots -- two 3s by Kennedy-Gay and a 2 -- off all of them. That was the game right there. All of a sudden, instead of being up by 2, we were up by 8."

One of East Hampton's goals going in was to keep the Mariners off the offensive boards, "and we did that to an extent," said McKee. "They had 10 offensive rebounds for the game, but only four in the second half, and they didn't score off any of them."

Southampton pressed man-for-man pretty much throughout the fray, but the team -- Reese especially -- withstood it. Conversely, the Bonackers "played good defense both nights," their coach said. "Holding Southampton, which is a good-shooting team, to 47 points is good."

Bridgehampton's Killer Bees didn't look like killers in their 65-42 loss to Southampton Tuesday, but redeemed themselves by defeating Riverhead 55-41 in the consolation game.

"It was a total turnaround for us," said the Bees' coach, Carl Johnson, who posited that his players had "got caught up in the hype in the opener. Southampton outplayed us in every phase of the game . . . they did to us what we usually do to other teams. They scored a lot of points in transition with steals and easy layups."

"We moved the ball better against Riverhead and our defense was much, much better," Johnson said.

As work continues on the Army Corps of Engineers’ seawall along the downtown Montauk shore, the beach has been transformed as large sand-filled geotextile bags are piled up to make what is meant to become a 15-foot-tall, 3,100-foot-long impediment to ocean flooding during storms.

East Hampton officials have endorsed the project as a key, short-term protection while the town continues to advocate for a more natural beach-widening project that it is hoped the Army Corps of Engineers could undertake under its long-term coastal plan, called the Fire Island to Montauk Point reformulation study. 

Funding for that work has been authorized by Congress, and a final draft outlining its scope is due this winter, but town officials acknowledged recently that it is unknown just what the Army Corps will propose regarding Montauk. 

Opponents of the seawall, a number of whom were arrested for acts of civil disobedience during protests at the beach work site this fall, have said that the wall will result in a total loss of the beach seaward and to either end of the bags, and that it should not have been allowed under the town’s coastal laws, which preclude hard structures along the ocean shore.

They have questioned the contractors’ removal of a natural primary dune, in order to “tie in” the western edge of the sandbag wall, as well as whether it is realistic to expect that the seawall will ever be removed. 

A number have been keeping close watch on the work, documenting it in photos and on video, and continue to raise questions about the project and its impacts, including whether the work adheres to agreed-upon specifications. 

Town officials have weekly conference calls with federal and state representatives to keep tabs on the work, said Alex Walter, East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell’s executive assistant, who is overseeing the project.

Working in 500-foot stretches from west to east, the contractor has put in sandbags for the wall as far east along the South Emerson Avenue beachfront as the Ocean Surf Resort.

The bags are to be covered with three feet of sand. Mr. Walter said this week that the first layer will be of quarried sand trucked in from an upland mine; natural, white sand excavated from the Montauk beach will be placed on top of it. The natural sand topping was included in the plan in an effort to maintain the natural look of the Montauk beach. 

The orange-colored quarried sand, which was thought to have been used only to fill the geotextile bags and not be mixed with the natural Montauk beach sand, has been spread across the beach in some areas, seawall opponents and other observers said after recent visits to the work zone.

According to Mr. Walter, the contractors used the sand to augment a work area that was constrained by rising tide and surf. “They are using some of that quarry sand to give themselves a barrier,” said Mr. Walter, explaining that it will eventually be scooped up and used to fill the sandbags.

“We were worried about that material when it showed up,” said Thomas Bradley Muse, a Montauk resident and project opponent who brought two samples of the quarry sand to a lab for analysis. The results are pending.

But, Mr. Muse said, a cursory examination, using samples of both the quarried sand and the native sand placed in jars with water, showed the quarried sample with many suspended particles in cloudy water. 

Mr. Muse, who is among the plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed last spring to stop the Army Corps project, said the impact of that sand on the ocean water quality is “wildly unacceptable.” 

He said it looks like the contractors are “building a berm” with the quarried material in front of the piled sand-filled bags. “I don’t know how you clean that up,” he said. In addition, he claimed, it appears that there is “at least two feet” of the quarry sand on top of the capped bags. 

Mr. Walter said that the Army Corps’s contractors, who are new to building this type of seawall, had difficulty at first creating the proper slurry mix of quarried sand and water, and pumping it into the geotextile bags. “It took them a little while to get the rhythm there,” Mr. Walter said. 

Sand fencing is to be put in along both sides of the sandbag wall to prevent people from getting close to the bags. It will be installed soon, Mr. Walter said, but the material that the fencing and fence posts will be made of has not yet been specified. Beach grass will be planted and protected by the fence. 

Town regulations on shoreline fencing allow only untreated wooden fencing and untreated wooden posts. Those regulations were strengthened in 2013 after lifeguards told town officials that old metal stakes once buried by sand but then unearthed were turning up in the surf zone as hazards to swimmers and beachgoers.

Town restrictions on the use of treated wood caused a delay in the installation of the walkways that will rise above the dune on pilings that have already been installed all along the project area. Mr. Walter said that approvals have now been issued for the timbers to be used. When that part of the construction will begin is unknown. 

While some project opponents have questioned whether the walkway would lead directly into the surf, Mr. Walter said that this week, at least, there is “plenty of beach on the west end,” and that the walkway is intended to allow people to get over the dune and down onto the sand. 

Town officials are waiting to see the outcome of the project before making plans for next summer’s beach season. 

The width of the downtown Montauk beach naturally ebbs and flows. On a narrowed beach, however, the seawall could take up much of the sand area. 

Decisions on how, or if, lifeguards would be stationed on what have been the downtown bathing beaches, or where beachgoers will be redirected should the seawall make it impossible to bask on the sand along the downtown stretch, will be made as soon as possible, Mr. Walter said.

“We really don’t know where the lifeguarded beaches are going to be,” he said.

He believes that the sandbag pile could be finished as far as the South Edison Street road-end — “enough to allow us to assess” — next month, giving town officials time to plan for summer.

“We did have some questions, initially” regarding whether there will be room on the beach for lifeguards or Marine Patrol access, Mr. Walter said Monday. Marine Patrol officers had previously established an open zone on the sand to maintain a clear path for emergency vehicles to reach different parts of the beach. 

With the seawall extending across much if not all of the width of the beach, those vehicles may be restricted to the nearby road. As part of the project, a vehicle access to the beach is to be built at South Edison Street. 

Contractors, who were to have finished the project by the end of next month, have pushed the completion date to mid-March, but residents carefully watching the progress have questioned whether that is possible.

Barring extreme winter weather, “I think it is realistic,” Mr. Walter said this week, “if you have a normal winter, not like you’ve had the last two years.”

“I think overall they’re doing a good job,” he said.

Changes at the federal and state levels to the standards, testing, and teacher evaluations associated with the Common Core have drawn positive, although cautious, responses from educators across the South Fork following the adoption of the Every Student Succeeds Act, which had bipartisan approval in Congress and was signed by President Obama early this month. 

The act, which updates the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act and the 14-year-old No Child Left Behind Act, eliminates national academic requirements, such as Common Core. Instead, it requires states to establish their own rigorous sets of learning standards. In short, educators say, it provides more local control. While it requires standardized testing it eliminates penalties for schools that perform poorly on those tests and removes a deadline for students to become proficient in reading and math.

In New York State, a task force commissioned by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to examine Common Core recommended many changes, such as decoupling test results and teacher performance reviews, giving fewer standardized tests and making them shorter, and creating a set of new state standards that would be based on advice from educators and parents. The state’s Board of Regents, which oversees public education, voted on Dec. 15 for a four-year moratorium on using student test scores to rate teachers. The Board of Regents is to vote in February to finalize the moratorium.

Many educators have said the problem with Common Core wasn’t the more challenging curriculum itself, but the way it was rolled out, the way tests were put in place, and the way politicians, including Governor Cuomo, attempted to tie students’ scores on the tests to teachers’ evaluations. 

Robert Tymann, the East Hampton School District’s assistant superintendent for instruction, said the direct link between test scores and teacher evaluations “took our focus and energy away,” adding “East Hampton schools will continue to improve the learning experience we provide for our students in compliance with, or despite, fluctuations in state politics.” 

“The federal government giving power back to the states is good, as long as the state assures that changes to the Common Core now being proposed do not totally disrupt all of the good work done on the standards thus far in our schools,” Lois Favre, superintendent of the Bridgehampton School District,  said. “We have embraced the standards, and always have held high standards for our students, so it’s not the standards that have been an issue in classrooms.”

“I had some deep concerns with how rapidly they were implemented,” said Katy Graves, superintendent of the Sag Harbor School District. “Educators felt good about much of the Common Core standards, they just needed to have some feedback because some of the concerns were at the young, developmental levels,” Ms. Graves said. “I don’t think the good parts, the high standards, are going to go away.” 

“The new standards in English language arts, math, social studies, and soon science set a rigorous bar for student achievement,” Mr. Tymann said. “This was always the intent of the reform initiative, but politics distorted the process.” He also said he hopes the state “does not throw out all the good that has come through this with the changes that are needed.”

Some in the area are calling the changes a win for the “opt out” movement, in which thousands of parents across the state asked their children to refuse to take state tests. Others also have weighed in. Claude Beudert, co-president of the East Hampton Teachers Association, and Kelly Anderson, a member of the Wainscott School Board who teaches in the Southampton School District, called the changes a step in the right direction.

“This initial step by the Regents did not happen on its own. It was the result of relentless activism and advocacy on the part of parents and educators statewide which have brought us to this point,” Mr. Beudert said.

Ms. Anderson suggested, though, that the moratorium should be extended permanently. “Any attempt to evaluate individual teachers based on test scores will never be an accurate and comprehensive method as long as the tests are given in only a few subjects. . . . So while the Regents’ decision gives cause for an immediate sigh of relief, it is no guarantee that we will not be in exactly the same situation in four years with shiny new ‘New York’ standards and a new company creating the tests.”

Exactly what the state’s new policies and standards will mean remains to be seen. Administrators here say they are awaiting further information, particularly when it comes to the annual reviews of teacher performance, which most local districts had been in the process of negotiating with their teachers associations.

“The implementation of the curriculum, assessments, and aligning it to evaluations has caused the problems, and we need to disentangle them so we can encourage teachers to move forward and do what’s right for students, not what’s right for the test,” Ms. Favre said. “Hopefully, the moratorium will assist us in focusing on what matters — our students.”

On the Monday before Christmas, downtown East Hampton was a veritable ghost town.

Between Main Street and Newtown Lane, more than a dozen businesses had empty storefronts. Such shuttered businesses, when strung together and nestled side-by side, echoed an eerie quiet during an otherwise festive and frenzied time of the year.

“It’s a seasonal community,” said Hal Zwick, director of commercial real estate at Town and Country, whose contact information hangs in the windows of several vacant shops. “The more expensive the store, the less business there is apart from the height of the season.”

Mr. Zwick confirmed that the recent closures of Ricky’s NYC on Main Street and Haute Hippie on Newtown Lane resulted from “corporate bankruptcies. It’s nothing to do with our environment here. We’re in a good economy now.”

Ereka Dunn, who directs publicity for Ricky’s NYC, declined to comment.

Besides its East Hampton location, Haute Hippie recently closed three other brick-and-mortar stores. A call to Jesse Cole, Haute Hippie’s C.E.O., went unreturned.

“Whether leasing or buying, retailers are being a little more cautious about what they’ll pay because of the seasonality,” said Mr. Zwick. Three-to-five-year leases, he said, favor the national, corporate retailers who can afford the steep rental costs. And, he said, larger stores, such as the temporary Newtown Lane location recently vacated by J. Crew, are more difficult to lease, with most retailers preferring 1,500 square feet or less.

East Hampton stands in stark contrast to Bridgehampton and Sag Harbor, where empty storefronts are rare and sidewalks generally seem more festive.

“The cost per square foot is half,” explained Mr. Zwick. The greatest demand for commercial space now is in Sag Harbor Village, he said, where “nothing is available.”

“We’ve done it to ourselves. The village has allowed it to happen, and it’s horrible,” said Valerie Smith, who has run the Monogram Shop on Newtown Lane for the past 18 years. “No one is walking around. Everyone is in Aspen and St. Bart’s. The idea of spending the Christmas holidays out here is obsolete.”

For those still looking for a dose of holiday cheer, Ms. Smith recommended a visit to Job’s Lane in Southampton; specifically, Stevenson’s Toys and Games and the Topiaire Flower Shop, where gift-wrapping and shoppers abound.

Katie Slowey, who has worked at Top Drawer Lingerie on Park Place, East Hampton, for the past five years, said her store attracts destination shoppers but rarely draws window shoppers casually stopping in to browse.

“There’s no place to shop,” lamented Ms. Slowey, pointing to the empty parking lot. She misses the sight of holiday shoppers hauling multiple bags, balancing cups of hot chocolate. “Everything is closed, so there’s no incentive to come and browse around town because there’s nothing to peek at.”

Megan Chiarello opened the first Gloria Jewel boutique in 2007. She has since opened five stores and splits her time among branches in Amagansett, East Hampton, Bridgehampton, Westhampton Beach, and Tribeca. Despite challenges with midweek foot traffic, she said loyal South Fork customers routinely stop in, knowing that each location is open every day, year round.

“Main Street feels really different from Newtown Lane, where everyone is open,” said Ms. Chiarello, whose store on Newtown sits sandwiched between Clic and James Perse, both year-round retailers. “We’re all outside sweeping our walkways, sharing customers. It’s our little community.”

In Bridgehampton, she mentioned a recent “holiday stroll” organized by Garnet Hill, which banded together local retailers. Ms. Chiarello suggested that a similar event in East Hampton might spark a greater sense of community, particularly among small-business owners.

Nancy Rowan, who owns the Golden Eagle, an art supply store on Newtown Lane, has witnessed a sea change in downtown East Hampton since she was a child.

“Because there are so many corporate-owned businesses and they close up for the winter, there’s no foot traffic anymore,” said Ms. Rowan, who has operated the Golden Eagle in two separate locations for the past 15 years. “You can’t come to town and shop if the stores are all closed. It’s very impactful on small businesses.”

Update, 11:55 p.m.: The New York City Police Department has located Bruce Negrycz II of Amagansett, according to Chief Michael Sarlo. The Silver Alert for Mr. Negrycz has been canceled. However, he said he didn't yet have anything further on the condition of Mr. Negrycz, who is 68 and suffers from dementia. 

Originally, 11:23 p.m.: An Amagansett man suffering from dementia has gone missing, and police are asking for the public's help in locating him. 

Bruce Negrycz II, who is 68, was last seen on Main Street in Amagansett on Thursday, Christmas Eve, at about 4 p.m. He lives at 203 Main Street. On the East Hampton Town Police Department's Facebook page, police wrote Mr. Negrycz was last seen walking on the sidewalk on Main Street. It was not immediately clear when police received a report he was missing. 

Mr. Negrycz was described as having a medium build at approximately 5 feet, 7 inches tall and 130 pounds. He has a large mustache, a goatee, and a clean shaven head. He may have been wearing a red shirt and "a fedora type hat," police said. 

The Suffolk County Police Department issued a Silver Alert late Saturday night. Silver Alerts are issued by law enforcement for missing people with cognitive impairments, such as Alzheimer's disease.

Anyone who may have seen Mr. Negrycz or has information about his whereabouts has been asked to contact the East Hampton Town police at 631-537-7575, or call 911.

December’s unusually warm weather seems to have yielded sort of a balmy business boon for many South Fork retailers.

Shop owners this week said the sun and warmth leading up to Christmas brought more people outside, including locals and city folk alike.

“We saw a lot more customers than we normally would. They came earlier, they lingered,” Sybille van Kempen, owner of Loaves and Fishes Cookshop in Bridgehampton, said on Monday. Sales were “just as good as years past and a little better. . . . I think the weather did have a lot to do with it.”

Lisa Field, whose family has owned the Sag Harbor Variety Store since 1970, agreed. “Over all, I think it was better for shopping, because when you have a really nice day people are going to say, ‘Let’s take a walk downtown on Main Street,’ ” Ms. Field said, adding that other shop owners she spoke to made similar observations.

“When it snows, people are staying home in their pajamas and doing online shopping,” she said. “The good weather, I think, was a blessing to many store owners. It was more conducive to the sense of community and going out to go shopping.”

Maria Bartelme, manager of Wainscott Hardware, said she noticed more of her customers who are second-home owners coming in on the weekends along with the locals. “We’ve definitely seen an increase even in our regular customers, because everyone is able to work outside and do small projects outside the house and in the yard,” she said.

Indeed, The Wall Street Journal reported on Dec. 13 that the effects of the warmer-than-usual temperatures were felt in New York City, too, where tourists ditched winter coats and hats to take pictures with the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree on the day temperatures hit a record high of 67 degrees in Central Park.

Some attributed their seasonal successes to more than just the sun and warmth. Ms. van Kempen said building the new Loaves and Fishes retail space next to the Bridgehampton Inn paid off. “Our new location has helped tremendously,” she said. “We really stand out. . . . I think everybody should move their store once in a while. It creates a lot of excitement and people want to come see what you’re doing.”

But for some retailers, whether the weather brought that boon depended on their merchandise. Ms. Field and Ms. Bartelme both said their stores managed to offset losses on winter items — whether it be Sag Harbor Variety Store’s hats, scarves, and gloves or Wainscott Hardware’s salt and snow shovels — by continuing to sell through the rest of their stock.

“To some degree we have the advantage because of the variety of merchandise we sell,” Ms. Field said. “Even though we weren’t selling the cold winter items, more people were out so we were selling more of the everyday items. A store that only has winter gear in is probably not going to give the same report.”

Take Lars Svanberg, for instance. The owner of Main Beach Surf and Sport in Wainscott has sold fewer down jackets, fleeces, and skis than he would normally this time of year, but he has been selling more surfboards, skateboards, and stand-up paddleboards than during Decembers past.

“It was a shift in product that we definitely saw,” Mr. Svanberg said. “The key for me has always been having a really broad selection of seasonal gear so that no matter what the weather is, we can take you through four seasons. It’s always summer somewhere. It has been sort of weatherproof.”

Another such business may very well be the retro shop Whoa! Nellie in Montauk, where Linda Seaton, the owner, described December business as “consistent, smooth, enjoyable, and profitable enough.” Over all, Ms. Seaton said, the spirit of giving was alive and well in Montauk, but she couldn’t specifically attribute it to the balmy temperatures. “People are cheerful in all kinds of weather in Montauk,” she said.

“The weather may have brought some who may not have otherwise ventured out,” she said. “Let’s put it this way: Had the weather been blustery, we might have served locals only.”

Holiday highlights were easy to come by on the South Fork this year, it seemed. Ms. Field sold two giant holiday wreaths, made of live greens, right off the rear facade of her store, and Ms. Seaton rented two props, a shark and a tinsel wreath, to Vanity Fair for a pair of magazine photo shoots. Ms. Bartelme said she and many other Christmas tree retailers sold out of them this year, and Ms. van Kempen said she helped one local homeowner decorate not just his house here but also two more he owns in Florida and California.

But temperatures began dropping sharply this week, just in time for people to start making their New Year’s resolutions.

Reflecting on his store’s inventory for a moment, Mr. Svanberg offered one thought in conclusion.

“Now, if we had a wish: Let it snow,” he said. “If it changed and we got winter right now, that would be great."