Nothing declares more definitively that the South Fork winter is really and truly over than the annual Montauk Friends of Erin St. Patrick's parade, which will be held this year on March 23.

Coming just about a week after the New York City St. Pat's parade, Montauk's version draws as many as 25,000 spectators along its roughly two-mile route and is considered the second-largest in the state, after New York's.

For many, the day begins with clam chowder served on the downtown green by the Montauk Chamber of Commerce, which depends on local restaurants to provide the classic warmer-upper. The $10 charge includes a souvenir mug to take home.

The parade begins at about 11:30 a.m. on South Edgemere Street, a mostly residential road, where good views and far less of a crowd can be found. There will be floats of a serious theme, marching bands, fire trucks, tractors, and more. Generally the more outlandish entries, for example the irreverent Coneheads and satirical Promised Land Salvage Company, come at the end. Participants in past years have included the United States Coast Guard, which has a station in Montauk, the East Hampton Town Trustees, and many public officials, schools, and civic groups. Sixty-two organizations were represented in the 2013 parade, organizers said.

By the time the line of march reaches the edge of downtown Montauk around noon, the roadsides are packed five or six deep. Parade participants say that the view of thousands of spectators as they make the turn onto Montauk Highway is simply astonishing.

Those in the know arrive early to secure a viewing spot and parking. Westbound traffic out of Montauk can be slow-moving after the parade, so the best thing to do is plan to stay an hour or two, either browsing the shops, getting a bite to eat, or taking a drive east to one of the state or county parks to do a little exploring. The ocean beach is just steps from the parade route too.

Activities begin for the Friends of Erin and its supporters well before the parade itself. A corned beef and cabbage dinner with live music will be held at the Point Bar and Grill on Montauk Highway on Saturday, March 15, from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. The cost is $15, $10 for children.

Members of the Friends of Erin will march in New York's St. Patrick's Day parade on March 17.

The annual grand marshal lunch will be held at Gurney's Inn on Old Montauk Highway on Friday, March 21, at noon. Tickets are $50 and available at montaukfriendsoferin.org. Paul Monte, the manager of Gurney's, is the 2014 grand marshal, a ceremonial post honoring a Montauk resident.

Then on March 22 the annual Friends of Erin cocktail party will be at Gurney's Inn from 4 to 8 p.m. with live music, a $10,000-first-prize cash raffle, and a open bar. Tickets are $75 at the door and $60 in advance at Becker's Home Center in Montauk, Atlantic Wines and Liquors in Amagansett, the Montauk Chamber of Commerce, or online.

As if that were not enough, then the Friends really get down to business. Immediately after the cocktail party, Paul Monte, the Amityville Pipe Band, and a group of supporters are expected climb on board a chartered bus to make the rounds of six Montauk bars and restaurants, starting at Sammy's Restaurant.

After the parade they go at it again, on a nine-stop pub tour that starts at Gurney's Inn and ends at the Montaukett Hotel overlooking Fort Pond Bay and its epic sunset view, weather permitting.

Despite the large numbers of people at the parade, the day is peaceful over all. More than 150 police officers were on patrol last year keeping an eye out for those drinking alcohol on the sidewalks and other minor infractions. Bars and some shops hire additional security just in case.

The Long Island Rail Road's morning trains to Montauk are subject to a temporary ban on alcohol consumption, and police have in the past searched disembarking passengers bags and coolers and confiscated beer and other beverages. According to the L.I.R.R. schedule, trains will arrive in Montauk at 8:10 and 10:10 a.m. and 12:10 p.m. on March 23. The off-peak ticket from Penn Station in New York City is $19.75.

Temperatures for the Montauk St. Patrick's Day parade are generally in the low-to-mid 40s, but brisk winds off the ocean can make it feel somewhat colder. The most reliable weather forecast for Montauk comes from the National Weather Service.

Applications for parade participants close on March 15. A form and guidelines can be downloaded from the Friends of Erin website.

The Am O'Gansett Parade, which is billed as the world's shortest St. Patrick's march, will be on Saturday, beginning just after noon on Montauk Highway in Amagansett. A party will follow on the Amagansett Historical Society lawn at the corner of Montauk Highway and Windmill Lane.

       High-voltage electrical transmission lines over a six-mile route in East Hampton Town could be buried within 16 months, provided East Hampton finds a way to finance the underground project, David Daly, the president and chief operating officer of PSEG Long Island, promised town and village officials and residents on Friday.

       Meanwhile, however, the installation of utility poles up to 65 feet high along village and town streets to a substation in Amagansett will continue despite calls by residents for it to be stopped. However, according to the agreement worked out on Friday, the large poles, which will hold 33-kilovolt wires, would be removed if the lines are buried.

       The $7 million overhead transmission line project is well under way, with 246 of 266 poles already installed as of March 5.

       At a crowded Town Hall meeting that day, Mr. Daly agreed to take a second look at alternatives to the above-ground wire extension, but, he said, in order to ensure reliable service, the current project must be completed. Residents opposed to the project say the poles have destroyed the traditional bucolic nature of their neighborhoods and damaged mature trees through digging and severe pruning, and that the high-tension lines could pose a health hazard to those living close to them.

       Last Thursday, the East Hampton Town Board passed a resolution demanding the burial of the lines and asking for financial assistance and intervention from Governor Andrew M. Cuomo. By Friday, the utility chief had received a letter from Audrey Zibelman, the chairwoman of the New York State Public Service Commission, which said the commission would review the project at Gov. Cuomo’s request.

       Ms. Zibelman commended PSEG Long Island for agreeing to review alternative power line routes. But, she wrote, “in the event that an acceptable alternative is found,” the commission would like to “ensure that costs related to ongoing construction are minimized.”

             Therefore, she said, the utility must provide the state with information about when it expects to complete the studies of the alternatives, including how their costs would be covered, as well as information regarding what steps can be taken “to ensure summer reliability at least cost to all ratepayers” while the alternative options are being evaluated.

       Mr. Daly is expected to put in writ ing this week an agreement discussed at a follow-up meeting on Friday attended by local officials, representatives of a residents’ group called Save East Hampton: Safe Responsible Energy, and of PSEG, and by State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle and Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr.

       Three routes for the underground transmission lines, or combinations thereof, are to be laid out and presented for public discussion within four months, and the most cost-effective and efficacious, in terms of energy delivery resilience, is to be chosen by mutual agreement. Only the new high-voltage lines would be buried; poles and lines that deliver electricity to individual customers and carry lines from other utilities would remain in place.

       A summary of possible funding sources for the power line burial project will be prepared within a month. PSEG officials estimated burial could cost $4 million a mile — with a low estimate of $2.3 million a mile and a possible high of up to $5 million or $6 million, depending on site conditions and methods.

       East Hampton ratepayers will likely be asked to shoulder the cost, as occurred in Southampton Town when an agreement to bury a similar stretch of line was hammered out with the Long Island Power Authority, which formerly controlled the power distribution lines.

       The availability of grant money, including a portion of Federal Emergency Management Agency funds recently earmarked for upgrades to Long Island energy delivery systems to make them more storm-resilient, will be explored.

       Members of Save East Hampton- Safe, Responsible Energy, the group that brought about the re-evaluation of the project, want it stopped now, even if the lines are eventually to be buried.

       In an email this week, the group said that it is “committed to fighting the continuation of the project as it is.”

       “The safety, health, and environmental issues that concern Save East Hampton would be in effect for close to two years while the poles remain up,” the group said in the email.

       “Were the project to stop at once, the money saved could be used to pay for the cost of removing the parts of the project that have been completed.”

       The group is advocating that community members continue to write to elected representatives and tell them to “halt the overhead project now.” It has posted contact information on its Facebook page.

       Earlier this week, the Garden Club of East Hampton wrote just such a letter to New York’s governor, state and federal representatives, and local officials, to “strongly oppose the looming power poles and above-ground wires currently being installed. . . .”

       “We have for 100 years steadfastly worked to protect the beauty and the environment of our community. We would be remiss if we did not step forward now to protest this assault on our values and our mission,” wrote Gigi Mahon, the president of the garden club.

       The new transmission line connecting three power substations is needed, Mr. Daly said last week, to ensure reliable power to 8,000 PSEG Long Island customers here, including a number in Montauk, where two diesel-powered substations were recently decommissioned. Without the new lines, he said, brownouts or blackouts could occur during peak summer demand. “There’s a very serious reliability problem from this point east,” Mr. Daly said last week at Town Hall.

       However, when pressed by a representative of Senator LaValle’s office, who asked, “Where is the urgency?” he conceded that “It’s very possible that we could go the summer with no problems.”

       A follow-up meeting of all the representatives is scheduled for the end of the month.

       “This is a fluid situation; certainly not finalized by any stretch of the imagination at this point,” East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell said Tuesday. “In a relatively short period of time, we’ve made positive progress. But we still need to hammer out the details,” he said earlier this week. He credited the assistance of Gov. Cuomo with getting “where we are today.”

       Mr. Cantwell said a big-picture understanding of the long-term plans for power supply to East Hampton Town is needed, with information about potential future power line upgrades and the roles that utility-supported projects such as the solar power projects on town land, for which the town board has solicited bids, will play.

       He said he has asked PSEG Long Island for a power supply map and for information regarding future plans, and that he would like to initiate discussions with the utility, after the current issue has been resolved, “so the public and the town can understand, and have input.”

       “This is all connected — we haven’t been given all the pieces yet,” he said. “Give me the big picture here; I don’t want to deal with this on a crisis basis.”

       A 71-year-old artist died after being trapped in a fire that consumed his house at 198 Narrow Lane East in Sagaponack, opposite the entrance to the Wolffer Estate Stables, early Saturday morning. James Beres was pronounced dead at the scene by Southampton Town police, who were called in along with the town’s fire marshals, the Suffolk County Arson Squad, and the medical examiner’s office. It is normal procedure to call in these outside agencies when investigating a fatality that occurs in a fire. The family dog also died in the blaze.

       Bridgehampton Fire Department volunteers were on the scene for eight and a half hours, putting out hot spots as best they could and working with investigators who were sifting through the burnt-out wreckage of what had been Mr. Beres’s house. His wife, Lovella Beres, managed to make it out of the conflagration alive.

       “I thought I was dreaming,” a neighbor said of the siren that woke her up Saturday morning. One moment, she said, it was twilight outside. The next, the predawn darkness lit up as the house burst into flames. The neighbor declined to give her name.

       “The house was fully engulfed in flames,” Bridgehampton Fire Chief Gary Horsburgh said Tuesday. “It was blazing. My second assistant chief, Jeff White, was first on the scene, and he said there was no way to get in.”

       “We knocked it down in 45 minutes to an hour,” Chief Horsburgh said. The job, however, was not close to being finished. Because there was a fatality, an investigation into the fire was immediately launched, with firefighters assisting as they could while at the same time suppressing hot spots in the basement of the structure as they erupted. “It was a long day. My guys did an excellent job.”

       The eight and a half hours spent on the scene was taxing for both firefighters and emergency medical teams, with reinforcements being brought in during the day. Adding greatly to the stress was the fact that Mr. Beres had died. “It is very tough on everybody. It hurts. It hits home,” Chief Horsburgh said.

       One of the challenges in fighting the fire was a lack of nearby water. “East Hampton sent a tanker, and they had an engine standing by at headquarters,” Chief Horsburgh said. Sag Harbor firefighters were part of the fire team, and volunteers from Southampton’s department were on hand, as well.

       Mr. Beres was a painter whose work has been displayed in galleries on the South Fork and in New York City. He had had emphysema and orthopedic problems in recent years, making rapid movement difficult, his family said in a release. His obituary will appear in a future issue

       Cheryl Kraft, Southampton’s chief fire marshal, said yesterday that the county had taken the lead in the investigation into the cause of the fire. She considered it an open investigation.

       The procedures and structures implemented last year to control congestion and rowdy behavior at Indian Wells Beach in Amagansett will be modified for the coming summer, East Hampton Town Councilwoman Sylvia Overby told the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee at its meeting on Monday.

       With few members in attendance and some of the committee’s recent concerns off the table for now — chief among them a 7-11 convenience store and the proposed 555 housing development — Ms. Overby updated the gathering on efforts to maintain order at the popular beach.

       Her remarks summarized a report she had delivered to the town board at its March 4 meeting, on a draft proposal developed by a committee including the town police chief, Michael Sarlo; Ed Michels, the harbormaster, Diane McNally, clerk of the town trustees, Marguerite Wolffsohn, the planning director, Kim Shaw, director of natural resources, Tom Talmage, a planning department engineer, Stephen Lynch, the highway superintendent, and John Ryan Sr. and John Ryan Jr., the town’s lifeguard trainer and lifeguard chief, respectively.

       Last year Ms. Overby, formerly the town board’s liaison to the committee, told the group of a preliminary plan to install an attended booth at the intersection of Indian Wells Highway and Bluff Road. Ultimately, the booth was situated at the entrance to the beach’s residents-only parking lot. The attendant was tasked with turning vehicles away when the lot became full, except for cars with resident permits or Amagansett Beach Association stickers.

       The plan succeeded in reducing both congestion and danger to pedestrians, and, to a lesser extent, discouraging people from carrying coolers and kegs to the large alcohol-fueled gatherings for which the beach has become widely known.

       Under the new proposal, the booth will be moved up toward Bluff Road, Ms. Overby said, which will allow additional parking on the west side of Indian Wells Highway, where there is now a sidewalk. A five-foot-wide sidewalk on the east side of the road will replace it, and link with the sidewalk on Bluff Road. The changes will allow approximately 22 additional parking spaces, Ms. Overby said. Handicapped spaces will increase from two to five.

       The booth will be situated at a cul-de-sac turnaround, to be put in place on Indian Wells Highway about 100 feet south of the Bluff Road intersection. Nonresident vehicles, including taxis and buses, will have to discharge passengers at that point.

       Kieran Brew, the committee’s chairman, said that the longer distance nonresident beachgoers would now have to walk “might be the game-changer” in discouraging them from carting cases or kegs of beer to the beach.

       The changes are also expected to provide a safer environment for those on foot in the parking lot. Until the attended booth was installed last year, buses, taxis, and private vehicles crowded into the narrow lot, picking up and dropping off bathers or idling while waiting for a parking spot.

       The restroom will also be reconstructed, with a new cupola allowing needed ventilation. A storage area within the structure will shrink to allow additional toilets and sinks, as well as a second outdoor shower. The deck will be rebuilt, and a shed addition will be used to store lifeguard equipment.

       New garbage cans will be installed at the beach, and regulations will be consolidated onto new signs, Ms. Overby said.

       The town board has authorized a $250,000 bond to finance the entire project, which Ms. Overby said she hoped would be completed by June. “I think sprucing up this beach is really important,” she concluded.

       “Thank you very much,” said Joan Tulp, a committee member, noting that residents have been asking for some of the improvements Ms. Overby detailed.

       The committee also considered the consumption of alcoholic beverages on town beaches, focusing on the hundreds-strong gatherings at Indian Wells. At the town board’s March 4 meeting, Chief Sarlo had reported better behavior on the beach last year and a reduction in summonses issued by Marine Patrol personnel. His department had “put quite a bit of effort” into increased oversight, he said, citing one or two Marine Patrol officers assigned to the beach, a traffic control officer onsite most or all of the day, and the booth attendant.

       “I would personally like to go out for a public hearing,” Ms. Overby said on Monday, “to see where the public stands on alcohol on lifeguarded beaches during lifeguarded hours.” Town attorneys, she said, have indicated that a ban on alcoholic beverages within a certain distance from lifeguarded areas can be imposed on individual beaches.

With reporting by Joanne Pilgrim

       Quality in many East Hampton Town waterways is excellent, according to recent testing, but problems in Three Mile Harbor and Georgica Pond require particular attention.

       This was the news at a meeting of the East Hampton Town Trustees on Tuesday when Dr. Christopher Gobler of Stony Brook University summarized the findings of a study undertaken last year of the waters under their jurisdiction. He will present a full report on Wednesday at 6 p.m. at Town Hall.

       Dr. Gobler’s research team monitored more than 15 marine and freshwater sites between the spring and fall.  “The oxygen levels throughout most of the waters — almost all of them — was quite high, perfect for sustaining robust aquatic life,” Dr. Gobler said on Tuesday. “The chlorophyll levels were perfect, in that high levels would be indicative of algal blooms, and low levels might suggest there’s not enough food for shellfish. The levels were quite adequate.”

       However, Dr. Gobler called the measurements of toxic algae that can be harmful to marine life in Three Mile Harbor troubling. “We saw, for example, what’s known as paralytic shellfish poisoning,” he said. Last spring, “that reached its highest levels, of all the waters, in Three Mile Harbor.” 

       Also in Three Mile Harbor, levels of cochlodinium, or rust tide, were highest in the fall. “Clearly, something is going on there, and we think that’s worth following up on in 2014 to get a better handle on not just the dynamics of the algae but also linkages to nutrients,” Dr. Gobler said.

       Sampling in Georgica Pond did not reveal high levels of cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, as might have been expected, Dr. Gobler said, “but there were some other indications of compromised water quality: total algal levels getting high in the late summer and surprisingly low levels of oxygen,” which could inhibit aquatic life.

       In 2012, after a dog that may have ingested water from or near the pond died, it was feared that the pond did contain cyanobacteria, which can cause adverse health effects. Follow-up was important, Dr. Gobler said.

       Citing year-to-year variability, Dr. Gobler said it was important to continue sampling water quality, and he  proposed that the work continue this year. He also recommended installing monitoring devices in Georgia Pond that would continuously measure oxygen levels so that the trustees could be notified instantly of adverse conditions.

“Certainly, we would talk with the D.E.C. as well,” he said. “This is designed to do rapid sampling and rapid response . . . so you can be acutely aware of anything that can change.”

       When Dr. Gobler’s study was initiated, the trustees had asked him to pay particular attention to coliform bacteria. In November, the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation had prohibited harvesting of shellfish on a year-round or seasonal basis in areas of Hand’s Creek, which is an arm of Three Mile Harbor, and Accabonac Harbor, citing increased levels of fecal coliform bacteria and the potential for shellfish from the affected areas to cause illness if consumed.

       “We got some interesting information,” Dr. Gobler told the trustees. “There were some areas that were closed that our data suggests actually could have been open. Conversely, there were a couple of areas where they . . . were open, and the data we used said maybe they should have been closed this time of year.”

       Stephanie Forsberg, a trustee with a doctorate in marine biology from Stony Brook who had worked in Dr. Gobler’s laboratory as a student, said the sampling program was “very rare to have on the East End of Long Island. There is no other lab in the vicinity that is looking at these things, or has the expertise to do so.”

       Ms. Forsberg said the data Dr. Gobler gathered  would provide a useful baseline for the future. “I think it’s a huge step for the town,” she said, thanking Dr. Gobler and his lab. “It’s important to us, and we know it’s important to our residents, because they keep telling us that,” she said.

       Ms. Forsberg moved to reserve money to cover the cost of water-quality testing this year, which she put at $38,178. The board voted unanimously to do so.

     A fire believed to be electrical in nature damaged part of a house in Sag Harbor Village overnight, investigators said this morning.

     East Hampton Town Chief Fire Marshal Dave (Buzzy) Browne said cellphone video footage taken by a neighbor, who called 911, showed electrical sparks where the above-ground wires go into 15 Robeson Boulevard, on the corner of Harrison Street. "It looks like it burned in" toward the house, he said.

     The house was unoccupied at the time. "It looked like they planned for renovations," Mr. Browne said.

     James Frazier, Sag Harbor Fire Department’s first assistant chief, said flames were already burning through the roof when the department was called out at 11:28 p.m. All of the department's apparatuses were called to the scene, and the rapid intervention team from the East Hampton Fire Department responded, as well.

     The fire was extinguished "fairly quickly," he said. Firefighters were put back in service by 1 a.m. No injuries were reported.

     "There was fairly extensive damage to one end of the house, but I wouldn't say it was a total loss," Mr. Frazier said.

     Mr. Browne said that Tom Baker, a fire marshal, is still investigating the cause. The electrical issue could have been a combination of the age of the wires, the cold, windy weather, and the branches that were surrounding the wires.

     "If it was any later in the night, it probably would have been a total loss," Mr. Frazier said.

A Sagaponack man died in a house fire early this morning, as did the man's dog, both trapped in a blaze that gutted the house at 198 Narrow Lane East, in Sagaponack, behind the Wolffer Estate Vineyard and horse farm. A female occupant of the house was able to escape the fire, which was first called in at 5:58 a.m. James Beres, 71, died, according to Southampton Town police.

"I thought I was dreaming," said a neighboring resident, recalling a siren that woke her up this morning. One moment, she said, it was twilight outside, the next, the pre-dawn darkness lit up as the house burst into flames. The neighbor would not give her name.

Besides the Bridgehampton Fire Department, which was first on the scene, the Southampton, East Hampton, and Sag Harbor departments were also called in, as were numerous local emergency medical teams.

Southampton Town police detectives were called in this morning, as were the town's fire marshals, the Suffolk police arson squad, medical examiner’s office, and the Suffolk Crime Scene Investigation unit.

“It was a tough call for everybody,” Southampton Detective James Mazzio said this afternoon, about the emergency responders on the scene. He said that the cause of the fire is under investigation.

     Two men accused of stealing copper gutters from an Amagansett house, both of whom have long histories with the criminal justice system, were remanded to the county jail on Thursday.

     William LaGarenne, 54, of Amagansett, and Freddie Parker, 42, of Bellport, were arrested after a routine traffic stop at 2 a.m. yesterday on Further Lane in East Hampton. East Hampton Town police discovered what Detective Sgt. Greg Schaefer described as "proceeds" from a theft at 31 Oceanview Lane, Amagansett, in their vehicle. The two were brought in for questioning and ultimately placed under arrest just after 7 a.m.

     They are charged with third-degree grand larceny, third-degree criminal possession of stolen property, and second-degree criminal mischief, all felonies. Both pleaded not guilty to the felony charges. Mr. LaGarenne's van has been impounded.

     "It was an excellent stop," Detective Schaefer said.

      In East Hampton Town Justice Court today, Justice Steven Tekulsky rattled off a long list of Mr. LaGarenne’s arrests, including at least two felony convictions for attempted burglary, one in March 1991 and the other in January 2009.

     "If in fact he has two felony convictions, I have no authority to do anything but remand him," Justice Tekulsky told Mr. LaGarenne's Legal Aid Society attorney, who had asked that her client be released. She said he had strong ties to the community and lives with his mother and brother on Shore Drive East in Amagansett, near Lazy Point.

     In July 2012, Mr. LaGarenne was accused of taking over $10,000 in copper gutters from Riverhead Building Supply on Railroad Avenue in East Hampton Village. The outcome of that case could not immediately be learned.

     Mr. Parker, who was represented at arraignment by John Kern of Southampton, was in the same boat as Mr. LaGarenne, Justice Tekulsky said. He too has two felony convictions on his record, for attempted robbery in 2001 and attempted criminal sale of a controlled substance in 1995.

     Each winter there are thefts of copper gutters from houses on the South Fork, although this year, Detective Schaefer said, there have not been many in  town police jurisdiction.

     There may be further charges against the two men in connection with other cases. "That's not out of the realm of possibility,” said the detective. “We're not done with the investigation."

     Police have asked that anyone with information on the investigation call them at 537-7575. All calls will be kept confidential.

The East Hampton Town Board voted unanimously on Thursday to authorize new legal action against Cyril’s Fish House, a popular Napeague bar and restaurant with multiple unresolved zoning violations.

The resolution paved the way for the town attorney to seek an court injunction to stop ongoing alleged violations of the town’s building and zoning codes.

Town officials have issued dozens of citations to Cyril's for more than a decade for structures on the property without permits or site plan approval and illegal clearing in wetlands and unauthorized expansion.

The property owners, Bonnie and Michael Dioguardi of Hicksville, and their attorneys had been in East Hampton Town Justice Court previously on those charges.

Elizabeth Vail, the lead East Hampton Town attorney, declined to provide details about what is planned but said in an email that the town board’s vote allows her office “to seek all appropriate relief to ensure Town Code violations at the subject property are removed.”

She said that the move follows a section of state law that “authorizes seeking injunctive relief to stop violations of the town's building and zoning codes.”

It is not clear if the town will seek an injunction barring the seasonal opening of Cyril’s for the coming summer. Its roadside bar, which draws large crowds that spill onto the edge of Montauk Highway, is leased from the Dioguardis and run by Cyril Fitzsimons, who closes up shop each winter. Cyril’s generally reopens in early spring.

The Dioguardis had asked the town last year to change the property's zoning designation from residential to neighborhood business, in the hope that the less-strict regulations would allow them to resolve some of the issues.

Despite support from two members of the previous town board, the request failed to get a majority after a large turnout at a hearing last March by citizens opposed to the change. The Suffolk County Planning Commission also expressed concerns about the site.

Cyril's is popular with weekend afternoon crowds drawn by a chance to mingle with one another and, if they can actually reach the bartenders, order its signature B.B.C.s.

     The East Hampton Village Board on Thursday announced the appointment of an independent hearing officer to hear disciplinary charges against Julio Galeano, a village police officer who was suspended without pay on Feb. 21 after an alleged romantic encounter in December with another member of the department at a house in which neither had permission to be.

     The board's Feb. 21 action followed its approval of new legislation on police discipline that bypasses the previous process, which had been negotiated with the East Hampton Village Police Benevolent Association. The new legislation does away with the arbitration procedures previously required and provides for dismissal as an option.

     On Dec. 30, Officer Galeano was allegedly discovered at a house on Talmage Lane with a traffic control officer, Jennifer Rosa, who was reported to have a key to the house because she had worked there as a cleaner. The house's owner was not there, but guests that were authorized to enter and stay at the house discovered the pair and called the police. Ms. Rosa was fired from her job with the Village Police Department in January. Officer Galeano's gun and badge had already been confiscated when Chief Gerard Larsen brought disciplinary charged against him on Feb. 11. He was at first dismissed with pay. Officer Galeano has denied the charges against him.

     The hearing officer, John G. Callahan, an attorney, will listen to comments and testimony from both sides and will issue a recommendation to the village for the appropriate disciplinary action. A date and location for the proceedings has not yet been determined.