A United States Army Corps of Engineers erosion-control project being planned for the downtown Montauk oceanfront has moved closer to reality with the issuing of a key state permit.

Meanwhile, activists have continued to try to stop it, launching an online petition drive and continuing to put pressure on East Hampton Town and Suffolk County officials and calling the project a dangerous precedent.

In a letter sent on Monday to the Army Corps, Roger Evans, the regional permit administrator for the New York Department of Environmental Conservation, signed off on a water quality permit for the project. The document was among several holdups that have put a planned March start to the work in doubt.

  The plan is to place thousands of geotextile sandbags along a 3,100-foot-long section of the beach, then cover them with a three-foot-thick sand “veneer.”

Bids from private firms seeking to perform the work for the Army Corps have been delayed twice as specifications changed and questions remainedabout work-staging areas, drainage, and whether motel guests would be able to easily get to the beach once the artificial dune was complete.

A bid opening tentatively to take place yesterday was again delayed. Chris Gardner, a spokesman for the Army Corps, said on Tuesday that the project team was making progress finalizing the last details and that the bids might be opened at the end of the week.

Several of the 10 beachfront properties in the downtown Montauk area have been threatened in a series of storms, including Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Sand will be trucked in from an upland mine to build a roughly 60-foot-wide “enhanced beach berm seaward of the structure,” according to the D.E.C. permit.

East Hampton Town banned sandbags and other structural responses to erosion on the ocean in 2007. Officials have said that because the Army Corps work may be removed when its larger Fire Island to Montauk Point Reformulation Plan begins, the town ban and related state regulations do not apply.

The Army Corps plan includes several walkways at road ends and public paths for foot traffic to the beach, as well as crossing points for vehicles over the roughly 15-foot-high artificial dune.

The cost of maintaining what the state permit called an “installed system,” including patching and removing torn sandbags and replacing its sand covering in the event of a storm, is to be paid for jointly by the Town of East Hampton and Suffolk County, according to the permit.

Once billed as a single project, it is now being planned in two phases; the first had been set to begin later this month before the bid delays put that in doubt.

Kevin McAllister, an environmental activist and founder of Defend H20, and Rav Friedel, a longtime Montauk pre­servationist, attended a Tuesday session of the Suffolk Legislature.

Mr. McAllister said he told lawmakers that changes to the Army Corps specifications, including an increase in the quantity of sand to be trucked in, warranted a re-examination of the county’s financial commitment.

He said that he favored a sand-only alternative, without the planned 14,560 sandbags, as did Mr. Friedel.

Elected officials, Mr. McAllister said, were “onboard because it was a political hot-button issue.”

“If a bad project like this gets in, it may not be the last,” he said. “We are trying to hold it up, put the spotlight on it as poor policy. They are all acting in isolation, all reaction to hot spots and rubber-stamping these.”

Suffolk Legislator Al Krupski of Southold, who was the only member to vote against the county sharing in the Montauk project’s maintenance cost, said in an interview that he sensed a “lack of commitment” among his colleagues to revisit the arrangement, but that he would keep pressing for it.

“This is a tremendous liability to the county,” Mr. Krupski said. Allowing the sandbags to be installed closer to the ocean than originally planned will accelerate erosion and cause damage to nearby properties, he said. He was also concerned about the precedent. “Shoreline hardening should not be something that becomes normal,” he said.

“What I worry about is that 15 years go by and we’ve armored all our beaches, and we ask, ‘Where is our shoreline?’ This is an issue of regional significance,” Mr. McAllister said.

Sea-level rise made shoreline fortification like that planned for Montauk  too great a risk for beach losses, he said. “Where is the science-based approach to all of this?”

A request for comment to Mr. Evans of the D.E.C. met with no reply.

For its part, the local chapter of the Surfrider environmental organization took the fight online last week. In a petition at Change.org, it said that the project jeopardized the public beach and will cost taxpayers “uncertain” ongoing maintenance expenses.

It said that the sandbag structure would “bump out” the shoreline and produce a “much higher rate of erosion than the naturally occurring rate.”

It also said that four well-known coastal geologists had visited the Montauk site and said that the Army Corps plan was “seriously flawed.”

In a September letter to officials, one of them, Robert Young, a geologist and director of Western Carolina University’s Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines in Cullowhee, N.C., wrote, “The geotextile wall will be exposed well before the projected lifespan is reached. The project will likely result in significant degradation of the public beach, while providing little protection for property.”

The Montauk Manor condominium's website was hacked on Saturday, along with many other businesses' websites around the country, with a claim posted on it saying the Islamic State was responsible.

East Hampton Town Police Chief Michael Sarlo said that his department was aware of the incident. "However, as of now there is no way to determine if it was ISIS or who may have been responsible," he said. "Also, we have no intel indicating specific threats of cyber crime by ISIS at this time." The F.B.I. would be forwarded information, he said. 

Although no one was available to comment at the F.B.I.'s press office in New York on Saturday evening, the bureau is investigating similar incidents that have been reported around the country, such as in St. Louis, according to news reports. 

As of about 6:30 p.m. Saturday the website for the Montauk Manor displayed a black banner on the top of its home page that read, "Hacked by Islamic State" with a logo. Visitors to the site could hear a song in Arabic. Below the logo, some text read, "We are everywhere," with a winky-face emoticon. The rest of the Manor's site appeared at the bottom of the page and appeared to have been functioning normally. 

The Manor's website is hosted by Liquidweb, a company based in Lansing, Mich., that provides web services for a number of other compromised sites. The Manor is one of about 800 sites affected by the hack, according to a spokeswoman for the condominium complex. She said the host company has been working for correct the issue for several hours. 

This isn't the first time East End websites have been hacked by extremists. On Sept. 11, 2013, the Village of Sag Harbor notified federal authorities when the village website was hacked by "Web Soliders Team from Islamic Electronic Army," which was linked to Al Qaeda. The East End Veterinary Emergency & Specialty Center in Riverhead was also hacked that day. 

State wildlife officials still have mute swans in their sights, but they’ve toned down their attack since their first proposal last year, which elicited protest from thousands.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation released a revised management plan Monday for the non-native invasive species, which are said to be aggressive toward people and to displace native wildlife. The first draft, issued in January 2014, called for their elimination in New York State by 2025, and sparked outrage from animal activists and residents who have grown fond of the large, graceful birds.

Changes to the proposal include a revised focus on minimizing swan impacts, rather than getting rid of all free-flying swans. Regional approaches would recognize the difference in impacts between upstate New York, where the D.E.C. said there were no mute swans before 1980, and other areas of the state. “This would generally limit mute swans to Long Island, New York City, and the lower four counties of the Hudson Valley (Orange, Rockland, Putnam and Westchester counties), with fewer than 800 birds in total and as few as possible occurring in tidal waters or other important wildlife habitats,” the D.E.C. said in its revised proposal. There are about 2,200 mute swans statewide. “A much smaller and managed population of this non-native species will best serve the public desire to see mute swans while protecting the integrity of wetland ecosystems in New York,” the D.E.C. said.

The D.E.C. initially planned to shoot, capture and euthanize, or sterilize mute swans, and have their eggs and nests destroyed.

However, the revision offers “a commitment to full consideration of non-lethal techniques, including egg-oiling and and placement of swans in possession of persons licensed by D.E.C., except where immediate removal of swans is necessary to protect health or safety.” The D.E.C. said this change would require “some commitment of funding and assistance from organizations and individuals who wish to see non-lethal options used to the extent possible.” Municipalities would be permitted to keep swans at local parks and other areas, which “can be costly to local governments or communities,” it said.

Mute swans, brought to North America to beautify estates in the Hudson Valley and on Long Island in the late 1800s and escaped from captivity around 1910, compete with native wildlife for aquatic food plants and nesting areas, according to the D.E.C. The free-ranging population can be found in coastal bays, marshes, and wetlands, and on lakes, rivers, and ponds throughout New York. Several live on Town Pond and Hook Pond and at the Nature Trail in East Hampton Village.

The first draft of the management plan also would have prohibited the feeding of mute swans. While the D.E.C. still discourages feeding of mute swans and other wild waterfowl, the revision would allow for feeding of mute swans in community-based management programs.

"Wildlife management can present challenges in trying to balance conflicting interests, such as when a beautiful bird has undesirable impacts,” D.E.C. commissioner Joe Martens said. “This revised plan remains committed to minimizing the impacts of mute swans on wildlife dependent on wetlands for their habitats, while being sensitive to public concerns about how and where that is accomplished.”

The D.E.C. said it met with organizations such as the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Ducks Unlimited, the New York State Fish and Wildlife Management Board, and the United States Department of Agriculture’s  Wildlife Services. “As a result of this thoughtful public input, the plan is greatly improved,” Mr. Martens said.

The D.E.C. is accepting comments on the revised management plan through April 24. Comments may be summated in writing to N.Y.S.D.E.C. Bureau of Wildlife, Swan Management Plan, 625 Broadway, Albany, N.Y. 12233, or by email to fwwildlf@gw. dec.state.ny.us.

The pieces are rapidly falling into place for an effort by the United States Army Corps of Engineers to protect the downtown Montauk oceanfront. According to a spokesman for the corps, a low bidder has been identified, and a formal contract could be signed within the next two weeks. Just when the work might begin is undecided.

Chris Gardner, a public affairs specialist for the Army Corps of Engineers New York District, said that nine firms submitted proposals. A bid of $8.4 million from H & L Contracting of Bay Shore was the lowest received.

"Generally, we would anticipate formally awarding a contract in the next two weeks or so, but that is pending coordination of things like bonding, insurance, etc. Once a contract is awarded, we would then begin working with the contractor to develop a more specific construction schedule," Mr. Gardner said in an email.

H & L Contracting is a veteran of several other notable projects for the Army Corps. It was the winning bidder in a $25 million beach stabilization on Coney Island awarded in September. Among its other recent projects have been dredging in Little Narragansett Bay, R.I., and in Great South Bay. It has done millions of dollars of highway work for the New York State Department of Transportation.

The 3,100-foot-long Montauk plan was developed in response to ongoing erosion made worse by Tropical Storm Irene in 2011 and Hurricane Sandy a bit more than a year later. Once work begins, the contractor is to excavate a trench on the beach in front of 10 properties, a mix of motels, condominiums, and private residences, and install a seawall made from some 14,500 plastic-fabric sandbags piled to a height of about 15 feet above sea level.

Following the completion of the sandbag wall, it will be covered by sand, most of which will come from an upland mine and be transported by truck to Montauk in as many as 3,000 round trips. Beach grass is to be planted on top of the reinforced dune, and several walkways and vehicle cross-overs will be built.

The Army Corps is planning the work in two phases to accommodate a demand from East Hampton Town officials that no construction activity take place between about Memorial Day and the middle of October. However, that requirement has made a tentative start later this month unlikely, according to a state official.

Mr. Gardner said it would be speculation to say when the work could begin. An attempt to reach a representative of H & L Contracting was unsuccessful.

Downtown Montauk's placement along the ocean shore is unique for Eastern Long Island and has its roots in a 1920s scheme by Carl Fisher to develop what he believed could be the "Miami Beach of the North." In Fisher's prescient vision, it would be an attractive complement to a resort he had built on Biscayne Bay. By the winter of 1926, there were 800 men at work, some building a bathing casino and ocean boardwalk.

Fisher's teams laid out the hamlet's streets, including one that lay seaward of the row of motels and condominiums that line the shore today. Until Carl Fisher arrived, what little business was done in Montauk was along Fort Pond Bay or well inland.

The stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression forced the Montauk Beach Company out of business. Fisher died about a year after the 1938 Hurricane wiped away his boardwalk.

Critics of the Army Corps project say that it will result in the loss of the beach and that necessary environmental view did not take place. Concerns were heightened when the project grew from about 63,000 cubic yards of sand to more than 100,000 in the final version.

Documents released by the Army Corps last week described other concerns. Brian Frank, a senior member of the East Hampton Town Planning Department, told the corps in November that changes to the town code might be necessary to avoid a nine-month time limit on sandbags on the ocean beach.

In October, the New York Department of State told the corps that while it approved of the project, future efforts should place greater emphasis on long-term risk reduction and resiliency, and account for natural processes and sea-level rise.

Yogi Harper, the president of Erosion Control Specialists of Nags Head, N.C., told the Army Corps in an undated letter that its design was inadequate. "Our review of the proposed shoreline protection for the Town of Montauk [sic], unfortunately, leads to a conclusion that the design will fail to provide the desired protection, and based on our experience it is believed that the design will lead to an early, if not rapid, failure of the protective structure."

Four environmental planners, including Rameshwar Das, who wrote the town's Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan, supported the project in a letter to the Army Corps. However, they said that a cost-sharing estimate for an annual maintenance cost of $60,000 to be split between the town and Suffolk County was too low and required more detailed analysis, particularly based on estimates of storm frequency during the project's 10-to-15-year lifespan.

They also said that replacing the downtown Montauk shoreline buildings with a "public beachfront park" would be a wiser long-term investment with the potential to generate more tourism income than the existing hotels.

Grace Musumeci, the chief of the Environmental Protection Agency's New York City office, told the Army Corps in September that there were shortcomings in its assessment of the project. She cited the sandbags' vulnerability to vandalism and their fate if they were exposed in a storm, as well as to threatened and endangered species such as sea turtles, marine mammals, and piping plovers.

While Peter Weppler, the chief of the Army Corps' New York Environmental Analysis Branch, responded in detail to Ms. Musumeci, he sent a form letter to all the others stating that "the proposed project represents a sound engineering solution to property damage concerns" and will meet environmental requirements.

Bill King, a well-known sculptor who lived in East Hampton and who was celebrated for his long, lanky figures in steel, aluminum, and other materials that often mirrored his tall, thin frame, died at home on Wednesday. He was 90. Memorial arrangements will be announced, and an obituary will appear in a future issue.

An East Hampton Town Board airport hearing scheduled for Thursday afternoon that was expected to draw hundreds from around the East End was postponed due to a snowstorm. 

Supervisor Larry Cantwell announced on Thursday morning that the meeting was rescheduled for March 12 at 4:30 p.m. It will take place at the same location as planned previously, LTV Studios at 75 Industrial Road in Wainscott. 

The town board is set to hear concerns and comments regarding four proposed laws designed to restrict operations at East Hampton Airport in an effort to limit noise. The restrictions could go into effect before the summer season.

The proposed legislation would impose a year-round curfew from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. on all flights to and from the airport. Takeoffs and landings by aircraft deemed “noisy” — primarily helicopters and jets that fall into a noise-rating category used by the Federal Aviation Administration and internationally — would be prohibited between 8 p.m. and 9 a.m. all year long.

Two additional laws would apply only in season, defined as May through September. One would ban helicopters from the airport on weekends (from noon Thursday to noon on Monday) and on holidays. The other would limit aircraft in the “noisy” category to two airport uses, one takeoff and one landing (i.e., a round trip) — per week.

A woman whose infant was in the back seat of her sport utility vehicle had to be extricated by firefighters after a two-car accident on Montauk Highway at Georgica Road in East Hampton Village during a snowstorm on Thursday morning. Police said one of the drivers had no license.

The East Hampton Fire Department's heavy rescue squad was called to remove the woman, who was in the passenger seat of a Chevrolet Equinox that collided with a Chevrolet Avalanche at about 6:10 a.m., according to Chief Richard Osterberg Jr. "We took the door off the passenger side because the car went into a snow bank," he said.

She was taken to Southampton Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, he said. The driver of the Equinox was able to get out on his own. Village police later issued him a summons for unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle, a violation. Their infant did not appear to be injured but was taken to the hospital as a precaution, Chief Osterberg said.

The driver of the truck was walking around when Chief Osterberg arrived and refused medical attention. Two ambulances from the East Hampton Village Ambulance Association responded.

Chief Osterberg said it appeared that the accident occurred because of the slippery roads, with one vehicle striking the other in the side at a right angle. East Hampton Village police are investigating the crash.

Traffic was detoured in the area while emergency personnel worked to clear the wreckage. The vehicles were towed. An assistant chief and the department's fire police remained at the scene for about two hours.

Alonso Garcia comes from a long line of strong women.

In 1991, Oliva Pelaez, Alonso’s grandmother, left Medellin, Col­ombia, and arrived on the South Fork, unsure exactly of how long she’d stay.

Almost 25 years and three grandchildren later, she’s never once looked back.

After getting her cosmetology license and becoming a manicurist, Ms. Pelaez worked first at Gurney’s Resort and Spa in Montauk and later at the Water’s Edge Hair Salon in Amagansett. In 1996, her daughters, Adriana Garcia and Natalia Marin, then 18 and 15, joined her, with Ms. Garcia enrolling for a year at East Hampton High School to improve her English before starting cosmetology school and beginning work as a manicurist. 

In October of 2010, the three women took an off-season gamble and decided to pool their resources and open Elegant Touch, a nail salon on Railroad Avenue in East Hampton. Ms. Garcia can be found there five to six days a week, after dropping her two children off at school — Valentina Sanchez, 15, attends East Hampton High School and Alonso Garcia, 6, attends the John M. Marshall Elementary School.

Like most parents, Ms. Garcia wants her children to be happy. She also hopes they come to value the hard work and sacrifice particular to new immigrants, who arrived here with the dream of creating a better life not only for themselves, but for their families.

Alonso, 6, is one of 18 children in Kristen Tulp’s kindergarten class at John Marshall.

The East Hampton School District’s 2013-14 New York State Report Card reflects a changing East Hampton. Among the district’s 1,850 students, enrollment was 46 percent Latino, 46 percent white, 4 percent black, 2 percent Asian, and 2 percent multiracial. By contrast, a decade ago, enrollment was 68 percent white and 25 percent Latino.

Both Alonso and his sister, Valentina, are bilingual. Once they walk through their front door, only Spanish is spoken, as is increasingly common in the East Hampton School District. “That’s our rule,” explains Ms. Garcia, 38. “We only speak Spanish at home.” Alonso’s sister also had Ms. Tulp as a teacher.

Ms. Pelaez’s husband, Juan Garcia, 41, works as a painter. Prior to emigrating from Colombia in 2002, he was a mason and owned his own bar. He was one of nine children; his father worked as a farmer, and his mother stayed home.

Ms. Pelaez and Mr. Garcia met in 2006 at a party in East Hampton and married four years later on Sept. 25, 2010, at the St. Therese of Lisieux Catholic Church in Montauk, with Alonso, then 1, decked out in a tuxedo that matched his father’s. Five days after the wedding, the families opened Elegant Touch.

“We share the same culture, the same religion,” explained Ms. Garcia, of the immediate bond between her and her husband. “I don’t have to worry about food. He knows what I’m cooking.”

Devout Catholics, the family attends weekly church services at either Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church in East Hampton or St. Therese in Montauk. During Lent, the family abstains from eating meat on Fridays.

Once at home, besides speaking Spanish, it’s important for Ms. Garcia to keep Colombian traditions alive. Every morning, when the house is still quiet, she gets up at 5:45 to prepare that evening’s dinner. Red ball beans are Alonso’s favorite. Around 6 p.m., once everyone has finished up with work and school, she’ll reheat supper and the foursome finally sit down to eat together as a family.

Alonso is an active little boy, whether skating, swimming, or playing soccer. While Valentina was content to sit quietly with crayons and a coloring book, Alonso prefers to stay in motion. Each week, during the fall and winter months, he takes soccer and in-line skating classes in Amagansett and swimming lessons at the Y.M.C.A.-East Hampton RECenter. During summers, he attends the Y.M.C.A. day camp.

Somewhat shy, but only with strangers, Alonso has closely shorn brown hair, which was recently gelled into a slight Mohawk, and brown eyes. In Ms. Tulp’s class, he loves playing with blocks during learning labs, when students rotate through different activity areas. Red is his favorite color and pizza is his favorite food. Jake is his closest friend. So far, he doesn’t know what he wants to do when he grows up.

The family travels regularly, trying to make a point of returning to Colombia at least once each year. For her 15th birthday in August, Valentina wanted nothing more than to see Cartagena. Given the busyness of the summer season, the family traveled to Cartagena over the Thanksgiving holiday, happily ensconced in a familiar language and familiar food.

During last week’s February recess, eager to escape the snow and the ice, Valentina accompanied her grandmother, her aunt, and 6-year-old cousin, Alondra, to the Dominican Republic. Alondra and Alonso are raised less like cousins and more like siblings — a close-knit dynamic shared by their mothers, who are inseparable.

Alonso stayed behind, happily keeping his mother company. On Monday, as Ms. Garcia worked, he watched his iPad, scribbled in some coloring books, and kept an eye on the occasional trains as they sped past the salon’s front window. By mid-week, he eventually succumbed to a two-hour nap in the back room.

“You always want the best for your kids. But sometimes what you want for them is not what they want,” she said last Thursday, during a break between clients. “I want them to know that whatever you want in your life, you have to work for it.”

The building housing East Hampton Bowl, which closed in 2013, will be demolished and replaced by a smaller structure of “more or less traditional” design if Jeffrey Suchman, the new owner of the property at 71 Montauk Highway, obtains a variance from the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals to exceed its lot coverage limitation.

The proposed 9,900-square-foot, one-story building, which would house a retail tenant, would be one-third smaller than the existing structure, while the lot’s coverage would shrink from 80.6 to 74.1 percent. The maximum permitted coverage is 60 percent, necessitating variance relief. The project is also subject to approval from the village’s design review board, the Suffolk County Department of Health Services, and the State Department of Transportation.

At the zoning board’s meeting on Friday, Eric Bregman, representing the applicant, said that the proposed structure’s size, height, setbacks, required parking, lighting, and use all conform to the village code, while its design would be traditional. It would be located closer to Montauk Highway than the bowling alley, he said, with parking to the side and rear.

Frank Newbold, the board’s chairman, asked Mr. Bregman why the applicant needed coverage in excess of what is permitted. A conforming building, Mr. Bregman said, would be just 5,000 to 5,500 square feet. “It would be totally economically unfeasible,” he said. “That would be a choice to go back to the existing building and repurpose that.”

When the benefits of a new building are weighed against the excess coverage, Mr. Newbold said, “there are many plusses to allowing the applicant to do the building this size.”

The applicant, Mr. Bregman said, has been working on the building’s design with Robert Hefner, a historic preservation consultant, and the design review board. “This is a very easy developer,” he said of Mr. Suchman. “He wants to do what works for everybody.”

“And the consensus is it will be better than the bowling alley that’s there now,” Mr. Newbold replied. “I think we’re satisfied with your reasoning.”

The hearing was closed and a determination is expected at the board’s next meeting, on Friday, March 13.

By contrast, the board showed no inclination to grant variance relief to Andy and Jane Graiser of 42 Mill Hill Lane. The applicants tore down an existing house on the property. A new, larger house is still under construction, and the applicants seek to situate a detached garage within required setbacks. They also sought to add an eyebrow window to the house’s roof but were denied by the Building Department, owing to its nonconformance with a section of the code aimed at controlling the mass of the upper third of a house.

At the board’s Feb. 13 meeting, which was to include a continuation of that hearing but was adjourned to Friday, Mary Bush, a neighbor, spoke against the application and criticized the house’s size relative to its lot and neighboring houses.

On Friday, Patrick Gunn, representing the applicants, asked for another adjournment, telling the board that the landscape architect wished to submit modified plans. Mr. Newbold, noting multiple previous requests, instead detailed the board’s criteria for granting variance relief, concluding that the application essentially did not meet any of them.

“The applicant and his architect knew the existing code when they designed the house,” he told Mr. Gunn. “They chose to go ahead and begin the house so they could be in by the summer without making these changes. They’ve come back three-quarters through construction asking for these changes. This board is not inclined to give that variance.”

As Ms. Bush had two weeks earlier, Maureen Bluedorn, who lives on Buell Lane, asked to address the board. “It never occurred to me, when I bought my property, that I should be asking for variances beyond what the setbacks were,” she said. “Since that time, I have seen that that seems to be a very common practice. I’ve also seen a change in the aesthetics of the village because of that.”

Setbacks are in place for a reason, she said, and should apply to all property owners. “I have an extremely hard time with the rationales that are given for changes,” she said, adding that the zoning board should not allow what she called “scope creep” that results in maximum lot coverage and houses that encroach on neighbors.

“ ‘Scope creep’? ” Mr. Newbold asked.

“That’s what is happening,” Ms. Bluedorn answered.

The hearing was closed, and a determination will likely be announced at the board’s March 13 meeting.

Other Rulings

The board announced six determinations, including the granting of a freshwater wetlands permit for work to be done by PSEG Long Island, covered elsewhere in this issue.

Michael Derrig, a landscaper who has purchased the building at 103 Montauk Highway that most recently housed the Players Club restaurant, was given variances to add two chimneys and make facade, fenestration, and foundation alterations, and add a shallow reflection pool and gravel driveway on the property. Mr. Derrig will use the property to showcase his business, Landscape Details.

Peter Morton of 57 West End Road was granted a coastal erosion hazard permit and variance to allow the continued maintenance of three air-conditioning units located within a required setback. Those units, plus a swimming pool, are also located seaward of the coastal erosion hazard line.

Jane Goldman of 74 Lee Avenue was given a variance to allow the ­continued maintenance of a 74-square-foot ex­pansion of a nonconforming second dwelling, for which a special permit was granted in 2000, as a prerequisite to a subdivision application that created the lot in its current configuration. Variance relief was also given to allow the continued maintenance of a slate patio, air-conditioning units, built-in trampoline, chimney, below-grade HVAC and pool equipment, and slate pavers that are within required setbacks.

Gregory King of 93 Middle Lane was granted variances to allow the continued maintenance of a swimming pool, slate patio, and five air-conditioning units, all within setbacks, and for a proposed stoop within the required setback.

Eric Rudin of 96 Georgica Road was given variances to allow the installation of paved areas and landscape features resulting in a net increase of 343 square feet of lot coverage, which is already slightly in excess of the maximum permitted. The areas and features include an expanded pool patio, walkway, additional paving, and a sculpture, all within required setbacks.

Firefighters responding to an automatic fire alarm at the Montauk Yacht Club on Sunday night discovered flames, which the Montauk Fire Department quickly extinguished. The fire caused minimal damage to one hotel room. 

Fire Chief Joe Lenahan said Monday that Vinne Franzone, the first assistant chief, Dave Grimes, a department captain, and Domingo Schiappacasse, a lieutenant, were on duty when the department was called to the alarm at 32 Star Island Drive on a snowy evening. The alarm was going off in a hotel room in the north building along a dock across from the pool. "Chief Franzone called dispatch to confirm that we had a fire immediately," said Chief Lenahan, who arrived within three minutes. Within a half-hour, firefighters put out the flames.

"Good thing the alarm system did its job," he said. 

The hotel was unoccupied, as the yacht club is closed for the season, but the heat and alarms were still on, according to Tom Baker, an East Hampton Town fire marshal who is investigating. The cause may have been a problem with a built-in electric wall heater in the room. The fire damaged a bathroom and burned through an outside wall. Mr. Baker described the damage as minimal.

"It was a good stop by the Montauk Fire Department," Mr. Baker said. "They did a really good job under the circumstances getting things done," he said referring to the snow and ice. 

One firefighter injured his shoulder and was treated at the hospital on Monday morning, Chief Lenahan said.

Five pieces of apparatus from the Montauk Fire Department responded, along with an engine from the Amagansett Fire Department and the rapid intervention team from the East Hampton Fire Department. The Springs Fire Department was asked to stand by at Montauk's headquarters.