A kick-off meeting to outline the development of an East Hampton Town comprehensive wastewater management plan, which will include plans for surface and groundwater quality protection and monitoring, as well as recommendations for optimum septic waste treatment, and the future of the town’s scavenger waste plant, was held Monday at Town Hall.

    The effort, said Dominick Stanzione, follows along in East Hampton’s “long history of environmental progressivity” and will be a “very important, groundbreaking study.” The town councilman has stressed the need for a long-range, science-based plan, and is one of three board members who voted to approve the nearly $198,000 contract with the consultants who will prepare it.

    Pio Lombardo of Lombardo Associates, a Massachusetts firm that has developed its own septic system, along with Kevin Phillips and Stephanie Davis of FPM Group of Ronkonkoma, who specialize in hydrogeology, will work with others from the Woods Hole Group, also in Massachusetts, to address the three main elements of the plan.

     They will investigate and present to the town the “science and engineering issues” involved in decisions about wastewater management and water protection, Mr. Lombardo said at the meeting on Monday, and will provide options, recommendations, and cost estimates for future decision-making by town officials.

    The plan has been at the center of a political tug of war among board members, with Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson and Councilwoman Theresa Quigley remaining adamantly opposed to it. They have insisted instead that the board should have approved a lease, then sale, almost two years ago of the scavenger waste plant to ClearFlo Technologies, a private company with which the sale had been discussed.

    Mr. Wilkinson attended Monday’s information session; Ms. Quigley did not. But the course of action set by Mr. Stanzione, along with Councilwoman Sylvia Overby and Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc, appeared to be making continued waves.

    Several speakers at the meeting asked pointed questions of Mr. Lombardo about whether the ultimate result of the planning process would be a requirement that individual homeowners spend their own money to upgrade septic systems, and if the consultants’ recommendations might include the use of Nitrex, the high-technology nitrogen-removal system developed by Lombardo Associates.

     “Is this whole thing a mandate, or just suggestions?” asked Pat Flynn of Montauk. “I am an American. Is this involving my liberty? Is someone going to walk on my property and look at my cesspool, because that I’m saying no to. I’m defending my land and my American rights.”

    “Nobody’s going to violate your rights,” Mr. Lombardo said. A lot-by-lot examination of septic systems is not planned, he said, and would have to be authorized by the town board.

    Should the town’s ultimate plan call for upgrades to sub-par residential septic systems, the town board would determine how those might be financed.

    “We have a collective problem of protecting our groundwater,” said Peter Wadsworth, a member of the town’s budget and finance advisory committee, “and the town as a whole is going to bear that cost. We all benefit from solving that problem.” He said there are numerous ways, including bond issues, to cover the costs of agreed-upon septic solutions that would avoid an onerous burden on individual taxpayers.

    Carole Campolo, a Springs resident, raised several issues about the hiring of Mr. Lombardo, as she has at other recent board meetings.

    In an e-mail sent around last week, Ms. Campolo urged residents to attend Monday’s kickoff meeting on the septic management plan, which she said is “being pushed by the ‘Agenda 21’ crowd.”

    She was apparently referring to a United Nations action plan stressing sustainability, smart growth, and environmental protection, which has become a target for political conservatives who liken it to social engineering.

    In his magazine, Blaze, the conservative political commentator Glenn Beck has called it a “global scheme that has the potential to wipe out freedoms of all American citizens.” He used the Agenda 21 name as the title of his dystopian novel, in which suburban and rural homeowners are stripped of their property rights by the government.

    In her e-mail, Ms. Campolo said that, in her opinion, the contract for creation of a wastewater management plan is “designed to . . . ultimately require each and every household to install the Nitrex system” at a cost of $20,000 to $30,000 per household.

    She called the bidding process that resulted in awarding the contract for creating the wastewater management plan to Mr. Lombardo, FPM, and the Woods Hole Group, “flawed at best,” and warned, in a reference to a solar energy company that went bankrupt after receiving federal stimulus funds, that “this contract could become East Hampton’s Solyndra.”

    She warned recipients who are not residents of East Hampton that, “if this contract gets a foothold in East Hampton, it will definitely spread to other hamlets and towns.”

    The Nitrex system is one of four septic systems accepted for use by the County Health Department. In independent evaluations, including by the Environmental Protection Agency, it has been determined to reduce the pollutant nitrogen in wastewater to the lowest levels, compared to other technologies.

    Mr. Lombardo pointed out in his presentation on Monday that nitrogen pollution is not a potential problem in a good portion of the town — the area south of a groundwater divide running lengthwise roughly through the center of East Hampton. There is a potential for nitrogen pollution north of the groundwater divide, but, he said, at present the lack of a growth of “excessive harmful algae” would indicate that nitrogen is not the issue. Based upon preliminary investigations, he said, he does not expect to be making recommendations for the widespread installation of any nitrogen removal system.

    However, if any Nitrex systems are to be installed as a result of the overall wastewater management plan, Mr. Lombardo will not benefit financially from the sales. In addition, he said, he would expect town officials to subject recommendations for specific treatment systems to a review by other experts in the field.

    On Monday afternoon, Mr. Lombardo provided a copy of a “conflict of interest statement” he signed, which he said is standard for all his contracts. It states that “should there be a need for wastewater and groundwater nitrogen removal systems in East Hampton,” with Nitrex’s capabilities, Lombardo Associates would receive no royalties.

    “Virtually all” technological consultants “have proprietary technology,” and such agreements are in no way out of the norm, Mr. Lombardo said.

    In this case, in response to questions by members of the town board, the consultant also provided a letter reiterating the agreement that the company would only receive consulting fees from its contract with the town, eliminating a financial incentive to recommend the use of the Nitrex system. 

    Kim Shaw, the town’s natural resources director, said that the choice of consultants was made through a blind rating process, using a matrix of criteria, by a committee including representatives from the town’s Engineering, Planning, Finance, Aquaculture, and Natural Resources Departments, as well as the town attorney’s office.

    After independent scores by each committee member were averaged, the group that was ultimately hired received the highest rating, based on the established criteria. 

    The plan calls for the establishment of a citizens’ project advisory committee, another bone of contention raised by Ms. Campolo, who said in her e-mail that she would like to be appointed, but that Mr. Lombardo is opposed. There should be a “representative group of citizens,” she wrote.

    The advisory committee is to be appointed by the town board. In an e-mail to The Star on Tuesday, Mr. Lombardo wrote that the consultants have “no objections or opinions on any candidates.”

    The wastewater management plan is expected to be finished in January. Consultants will focus on needs analysis and defining alternatives for various areas of town over the next two months, beginning with Montauk in September. Public meetings will be held monthly for discussion and review, with remote participation through e-mail and telephone included, and will be streamed live on the town’s public access provider, LTV. Reports on various elements of the project will be issued periodically.

    A Web site, at EHWaterRestore.com, will include information and documents, and afford the public an opportunity to submit questions and comments.

    “Any future action will be decided by the town board in January,” when the consultants’ work has been completed, Mr. Lombardo said on Monday. “All we’re going to do is present the factual information.”

    These days the quintessential Hamptons house requires certain amenities. Gym? Check. Wine cellar? Of course. En-suite bathrooms? Naturally.

    No self-respecting builder would erect a South Fork house without those perks and then some. What might be considered over the top anywhere else is de rigueur here.

    Alan Schnurman doubles as both a broker at Saunders and a “spec builder” who designs houses on the dictates of the market. After all, he wants to be sure they sell. “If you don’t put everything in, they’ll say, ‘I love your house, but if you only had a guest master. . . .’ Whatever you don’t have, that’s what they want.”

    So he’s taking no chances as he builds a house on a 45-acre reserve off Hedges Lane in Sagaponack. On the lower level (no longer called a basement), built to the same standards as the upper levels, is a 36-by-16-foot gym, two bedrooms and two full baths (for help), steam shower, “full entertaining kitchen” that includes “everything but a stove,” recreation area with fireplace, billiard room, media room, wine cellar, and . . . drum roll here . . . elevator. “I would not build a house without an elevator,” he said.

    The upstairs also reflects today’s Hamptons house must-haves. The kitchen will boast two dishwashers, a high-end stove (probably a Wolf or Viking with matching hood and six to eight burners), a huge middle island with two sinks, a fireplace, a breakfast area overlooking the deck, and a butler’s pantry with wine cooler and refrigerator drawers. Not to mention another butler’s pantry between the dining room and kitchen.

    In keeping with the fashion to have an open-plan living space, the kitchen faces a family room and living room with only half-walls to demarcate them as separate rooms. “You can actually see 70 feet from the kitchen to the fireplace in the living room,” said Mr. Schnurman. To complete the first floor is a “junior master bedroom,” which Mr. Schnurman claims is “a must for people who have parents.” Despite the elevator, he believes older family members prefer not to make the upstairs trek.

    All bedrooms have en-suite baths, while the master bedroom has a 170-square-foot walk-in closet (bigger than a typical Manhattan kitchen) and two balconies. The master bath has the usual oversize shower and tub, balcony, and — what Hamptons bathroom would be complete without them — his and hers W.C.s. Naturally, there’s another living room over the garage, guest suites being essential.

    “Nobody wants just a house anymore,” said Julie Keyes, an art dealer who moonlights as an agent at Saunders in Bridgehampton. “They want a compound.” Hamptonites want friends and family to visit, but “they don’t want them to live in the house.” So, while guest wings are fine, guesthouses are preferable, she believes. Though, it must be noted, there are many guest wings where inhabitants are given all they need to stay independent, and which make staying at a Taj hotel seem like slumming. Many homeowners, said Ms. Keyes, are converting pool houses into guest quarters. Gyms too are fine, she said, but yoga rooms are better. She mentioned one health-conscious celebrity who has a “yoga building.”

    Pamela Glazer, a Southampton architect, observed that East Enders are filling their houses with things that once were left to commercial spaces. “Everybody wants a media room,” she said, whether it’s just a closed off space with a large screen TV, sofa, and sound system or a step-down theater with rows of leather recliners. You know it’s a ubiquitous trend when a store such as P.C. Richard sells several styles of movie seats, even though, as Ms. Keyes said, “I can see a producer needing one, but even dentists feel they need a screening room. . . . They don’t care that no one’s ever going to use it. . . . It’s the modern equivalent of a guitar in the closet.”

    One screening room that has seen lots of use for entertaining Hollywood bigwigs, including Kevin Costner, who screened one of his films there, is the 110-seat space at Goose Creek, a five-plus-acre estate in Wainscott. The asking price of that house was just lowered from its original $26 million to $10.9 million.

    Ms. Glazer also sees amenities that are usually reserved for restaurants or bars making inroads in houses, citing “game rooms with full bars, pool tables, Ping-Pong, and dart boards,” and kitchens with restaurant stoves and glass-fronted fridges. “We’re almost antisocial or just want to socialize with who we want to be with,” she mused. For a homeowner who spends a few weeks a year in a house, “it’s not like they need to spend $12,000 on a refrigerator.”

    But she can see the value of a big kitchen island, noting that a lot of Hamptons denizens emigrate from the city with their busy lives and miniscule kitchens and use these central anchors as gathering places where hosts and guests can cook and socialize.

    Perhaps the most recent trend, according to Town and Country's Judi Desiderio, is the moving of kitchens outside. Brown Jordan Outdoor Kitchens offers “a wide-range of cooking and entertaining possibilities that rival interior kitchens” according to an ad. No kidding. The builder Jeffrey Collé has just built an outdoor kitchen that is more elaborate than most indoor kitchens, what with its grills, burners, warming drawers, refrigerator drawers, wine cooler, deep fryer, and even pizza oven. “Barbecues have reached a whole new dimension,” he said. An understatement to be sure.

    Outdoor living rooms have also become popular. “People get to double the size of their house by using the outdoors as an entertainment area,” said Ms. Desiderio. Despite less than optimum weather conditions, Hildreth’s Patio Store had a strong season selling outdoor furniture. Ditto for new kid on the block Serena and Lily, which sold a lot of fully-cushioned Sundial chairs, which look more like an armchair you’d put in your library to sit around the fire than the usual lounge chair. Speaking of fire, outdoor fireplaces are quite the thing, too.

    While everything else is going outside, why not TVs? “I don’t get wowed too much,” said Ms. Desiderio, but her mouth did drop when she attended a party on Gardiner’s Bay this summer and saw a 25-by-25-foot outdoor screen for movies and video games. It’s a trend that is “just starting, but you’re going to see more and more.”

    While amenities such as wine cellars and gyms are nice, the lack of either one is not a deal breaker, according to Ray Lord, an agent at Douglas Elliman. However, your pool had better be Gunite for today’s buyer, he said. “They are more expensive to construct, but at the end of the day they’re cheaper to maintain.”

    Which brings us to ponds. Charles Fischler of Harmonia, a Bridgehampton landscape company, just completed the backyard of a ranch house in Springs where the client spent $800,000 on less than an acre to create three levels of topography with an invisible-edge pool and a “most magical” pond with a walkway over it. The desire for D.I.Y. ponds has become so great that Sagaponack Village is in the process of changing a law to now treat ponds as swimming pools. David Seeler owns a property with two ponds in that village, and claims that they attract wildlife such as kingfishers, herons, and great blue herons. According to Ms. Keyes, they also attract bugs.

    So ponds may not become as essential a luxury to Hamponites as en-suite baths. Or, in the current climate, backup electrical generators.

Update #2 (8/24/2013):

On Saturday, The Star updated reporting on this unfolding situation, with a separate story that can be found on the home page of this Web site.

Jason Lee, 37, of New York City, a financial services manager for Goldman Sachs since 1998, was arrested Tuesday by East Hampton Town police on a charge of first-degree rape.

Brought into court in handcuffs later that day, he stood before Town Justice Catherine Cahill as Dan Cronin, a Suffolk County assistant district attorney, asked that bail be set at $25,000. Mr. Lee’s wife was in the courtroom, along with many members of his family.

“He adamantly denies these allegations,” Edward Burke Jr., his attorney, told Justice Cahill. Mr. Burke did not identify the defendant’s employer, saying only that he worked “at 200 West Street” in Manhattan. That address is better known as the Goldman Sachs Tower.

A receptionist at Goldman confirmed that a Jason Lee does work there, noting that “there are at least two” men named Jason Lee employed by the firm. Mr. Cronin said the case would be presented to a grand jury quickly. Town police have not commented on it officially. No press statement has been issued. (Please see update below.)

“The matter is still under investigation. It is a fluid situation,” Detective Lt. Chris Anderson said yesterday. However, a police source who asked not to be identified said that the alleged crime happened at a Monday night or early Tuesday pool party, which apparently involved nudity, at a rented house on Clover Leaf Lane in East Hampton.

The court set bail at $20,000. Mr. Burke told Justice Cahill that it would be posted immediately. The family went into a side courtroom and sat down together. The court clerks were handed a manila envelope shortly after. Emily Grunewald, a clerk of the court, pulled a stack of cash from the envelope and patiently counted out $20,000 while Mr. Lee waited in the courthouse holding cell. Nicole Shipman, another clerk, counted it a second time.

With the bail money counted out, the clerks signed off on a document and the accused man was set loose. He was with his family afterward when they met for half an hour with Mr. Burke.

Justice Cahill set a nominal return date of Sept. 19 in East Hampton Justice Court, but if an indictment is obtained, Mr. Lee’s next appearance will be in criminal court in Riverhead.

Update #1:

In a press statement released Thursday afternoon, East Hampton Town police said that the alleged victim was a 20-year-old woman and that she had been sexually assaulted inside the house, identified as Mr. Lee's, "where several people had gathered." According to the statement, police had been called there after a report of a disturbance that came in to dispatchers at 6:37 a.m. Tuesday.

They said that their investigation was ongoing and that anyone with information about the matter should phone them at 631-537-7575.

    The culvert on Gerard Drive in Springs, completed in 2006 to increase tidal flushing of the north end of Accabonac Harbor in order to minimize the threat of coliform bacteria and other pathogens, remains sanded up and closed. The culvert was authorized for construction about 10 years ago, and its cost, including engineering, has run to $888,266, according to Len Bernard, the East Hampton Town budget officer.

    This year, for the first time, the culvert was not opened in early spring; consequently, it is not accomplishing its purpose, and the State Department of Environmental Conservation has closed some waterways in the area, including the north end of Accabonac Harbor and East Harbor, at its southern end, to the taking of shellfish.

    “We have been trying for the past couple months to get a team together to do water-quality sampling,” Kim Shaw, the town’s natural resources director, told The Star. “The D.E.C. will not let me use volunteers — that’s the way I was attacking it. The D.E.C. will not allow anybody that is not a paid town employee. We have to do some water-quality monitoring to see if the water has improved.” Ms. Shaw said that she hopes samples will be taken in the fall.

    While the town’s Natural Resources Department holds the permit for opening the culvert, the town trustees pay for its implementation. As Ms. Shaw is relatively new in her post, having succeeded Larry Penny last year, “she didn’t want to open it so she could get her own data on water when it is not open,” said Diane McNally, the clerk of the trustees. “Once you do that, more people look at it and say it was a failure. It wasn’t.”

    In the trustees’ estimation, Ms. McNally said, the culvert works as intended, when it is open. “It had support from the community,” she said, but “you have to reopen it. Some people didn’t anticipate that it would clog up based on tides, weather patterns. For those that didn’t know that and didn’t anticipate an annual opening, they look at it as an error. We were told that once the culvert went in, the water quality at that end of the harbor got better.”

    Until this year, the culvert was opened annually at a cost of approximately $15,000, said Mr. Penny. “It did clean up the north end quite nicely,” he said. “Normally, that cost was picked up by the state FEMA office, because four or five of those cloggings were caused by storms. I would get the permit from the D.E.C. and Army Corps to clean it out. We cleaned it out several times.”

    But not this year. “We would advocate strongly that they maintain and dredge open the culvert so it does what it was intended to do and facilitate better tidal flushing of the north end,” said Arnold Leo, secretary of the Town Baymen’s Association.

    The D.E.C., said Ms. Shaw, “is so shorthanded they can’t get out there to test on a regular basis.” Many of the closures to the harvesting of shellfish, she said, are precautionary.

    “To me, that’s reprehensible,” Mr. Leo said, “that they will keep a body of water closed to shellfishing because they don’t have the budget to send people to do the testing. That’s making everybody else pay for their budgetary problems.”

    Closed or not, the current state of the waterway presents a potential health hazard, said Michael Hastalis, who has lived on Gerard Drive for 35 years. “The town should hire their own testing,” he said, “because people are clamming right near it, and fishing every night. It’s a very dangerous situation over here because people are fishing off the culvert, the rocks. I certainly would be questioning the clams coming out of Accabonac — although nobody’s died yet.”

    Mr. Hastalis also cited the culvert as a possible culprit in the loss of nearby property owners’ beachfront. “The two or three houses directly south of it are losing a lot of beach,” he said.

    The State Department of Environmental Conservation responded to multiple queries regarding the water quality in Accabonac Harbor by sending links to its Web site via e-mail, but did not specifically address questions as to future water-quality testing in Accabonac Harbor.

   There’s a house in Sag Harbor that was recently put on the market. It’s not on the water, though it’s across the street from a marina. There are no views. At .7 acre, there isn’t even that much land. And the main house is 3,500 square feet, modest by Hamptons standards. However, the owners are asking $4.8 million because they know they have something special. Call it “magic.”

    With cookie-cutter houses sprouting up around the South Fork like invasive plant species — real estate pros call it “Farrellization” after Joe Farrell, a builder of very large and often very similar houses — there is a premium on enchantment. Whether it’s a uniqueness or the owner’s vision, the elusive quality is the antithesis of builder’s blandness. In a sense, these sorts of properties embrace the essence of what the South Fork once was or could have been.

    “There is a certain intangible factor that has an impact on price,” said Debra Reece, vice president of Sotheby’s Bridgehampton office.

    In his attempt to explain what makes the Sag Harbor property so special, its listing broker, Paul Brennan of Douglas Elliman, used descriptors such as “one of a kind,” “eclectically wonderful,” “eccentric,” “quirkily European,” “artistic,” and “filled with collectibles.”

    The house is owned by Elfi and Michael Eicke, who also own Christy’s Art Center in Sag Harbor, where they purvey Old Master paintings and high-end antiques. So, naturally, their house overflows with the treasures of the couple’s global travels, objects of beauty that spill into a series of outdoor rooms and onto the bewitching gardens. Perhaps the most delightful of its charms is a bridge that connects the 18th-century main house to a former artist’s studio dating from the previous owner, which now serves as a sort of great room-salon.

    It is a shame that when asked about houses with “magic” many agents’ minds went blank. And it is no surprise that another property that came to mind is also in Sag Harbor Village. Gioia DiPaolo, an agent at Douglas Elliman, sold the antique house on 1.8 acres last Christmas. It had been on the market only a few days. Trying to put the elusiveness of its appeal into words, she mentioned “the way light comes into the rooms . . . the way things are arranged.”

    “I have found that, even when a buyer says that ‘I can visualize,’ oftentimes they cannot,” Ms. DiPaolo said. “They are really attracted to spaces that are arranged beautifully.”

    In that house, the floors were painted white, and books and art “made it seem like an intelligent person who has an appreciation for beauty lives here.” The irony is that the buyer is “practically gutting it.” There were problems for a contemporary owner, not least a kitchen and dining room that needed to be moved up a level. But it was, according to Ms. DiPaolo, “the bones and proportion of the rooms that create [its] magic, things [a buyer is] not even aware of.”

    Linda Haugevik, a Sotheby’s agent, seems to have her pulse on magical properties. She lists three that could be said to fall into the category, and all are compounds — a category that is getting traction of late. “There’s magic in a compound as opposed to an enormous 12,000-square-foot house,” she said. One such property is that of Sandy Gallin, a former talent manager who traded in the entertainment biz in order to lovingly develop properties, one at a time. The main house on his Further Lane property in East Hampton is a modest 6,500 square feet, but there are several cottages where guests can seek privacy.

    Yes, it has got a lot of bedrooms and bathrooms and other amenities such as a screening room, but that’s not the point. What gives it its magic? It could be the apple orchard, or stone paths, or outdoor entertainment areas, or the chef’s kitchen. Whatever the case, “the whole is more than the sum of its parts,” as its listing states. “It’s understated,” said Ms. Reece. “The [buildings] don’t overwhelm the grounds.” 

    “There’s something to be said for intimacy,” said Ms. Haugevik. “In a big house there’s an empty echo. It’s really all about energy,” she said. “There’s something about a compound that brings the house and the land synergistically together.”

    Ross Bleckner’s house on Daniel’s Lane in Sagaponack, also Ms. Haugevik’s listing, is another property with multiple structures and rolling lawns. It also has an unparalleled Hamptons pedigree: It was the residence of Truman Capote. Being able to “hear, see, smell, and taste the ocean” doesn’t hurt either.

    “There are certain properties that do have a magic,” said Ms. Haugevik, “and it’s worth something. It’s like a Picasso that sells for $10 million and someone’s painting they sell at a yard sale.”

    Ms. Haugevik’s third magical property is that of Richard Gere on Actors Colony Road on North Haven, which just went on the market for $65 million, a price she came up with but which some have met with skepticism. She stands by it. After all, a house on a Sagaponack farm field: expensive. A house on the ocean: more expensive. A house with magic: priceless.

    The host of a 10-hour dance party who had obtained permission to use an East Hampton Town park in Amagansett on Saturday, saying that the gathering was for friends and family, charged up to $174 per person to attend without the knowledge of local officials.

    The gathering, billed on the Web as Electronic Beach, appeared to have violated a number of conditions of its town permit and drew complaints about noise from beachgoers and residents.

    In a 4-0 vote on Aug. 1 the East Hampton Town Board approved what appeared to be a routine mass gathering permit for an event at Fresh Pond Park in Amagansett set for little more than a week later.

    However, it was all quiet that night at the approved location, but not so at Albert’s Landing Beach, less than a mile away, where a stage, lights, a powerful sound system, and several bars had been set up.

    According to the wording of the town board resolution, the event, described as a “summer social,” was organized by John Rayner Turley of New York City. In his application, Mr. Turley had said that a single live band and a D.J. would provide the entertainment for a get-together for up to 150 “friends and relatives.”

    On Saturday, a throng of revelers estimated at 200 people, each paying between $154 and $174, depending on if they took advantage of early-bird offers, gathered at Albert’s Landing to hear a lineup that included three live bands and at least that many D.J. sets.

    It was a modest event by recent East Hampton Town standards. The July 5 Shark Attack Sounds party in Montauk reportedly drew close to 4,000 people at a ticket cost of $46 per person.

    Calls about noise coming from the Albert’s Landing Beach area began to come in to East Hampton police dispatchers around 1:30 p.m. on Saturday. Nine in all, they stopped shortly before midnight after the music had ended. Sound from the tall stacks of loudspeakers carried far, reaching to Town Lane in Amagansett and across Gardiner’s Bay to Lazy Point.

    According to East Hampton Town Councilwoman Sylvia Overby, who lives in Amagansett, a resident visited her Town Hall office on Monday to complain. She said that the woman told her that by the early evening, when she had gone to the beach for a swim, the music’s volume was nearly intolerable.

    That night from a distance greenish-blue lighting could be seen illuminating the trees around the Albert’s Landing Beach picnic area. From time to time, white searchlight-style beacons rose into the sky, as if to punctuate the thudding music.

    Security at the event seemed to consist of several people watching vehicles in the town-owned beach parking lot and a few burly men in black T-shirts among the crowd. A young man wearing gloves circled the grounds picking up plastic cups and other debris.

    Most of the crowd, which appeared to be men and women in their low to mid-20s, thronged around the stage dancing to the performances or recording the proceedings on their smartphones. Others roamed the grounds, grabbing cups of Coors Light beer, waiting at a food truck for something to eat, or queued at several bar tents each bearing the Monster Energy Drink logo. Also available were Pacifico beer, Tito’s Handmade Vodka, and Vita Coco coconut water. All of the beverage providers were listed as sponsors of the event on Electronic Beach’s Facebook page and on a promotional video.

    On its Wordpress Web page, the promoters, including Mr. Turley, 26, promised an event with an “intimate feel,” a follow-up to one held at the same location in 2012.

    “For those who were unable to attend last year, picture a sunset into moonlight music/dance sensation on the beach — in a secluded venue — next to the ocean — under the stars — with music going from sunset till midnight.” Albert’s Landing Beach borders Gardiner’s Bay.

    Mr. Turley said that planning for last year’s Electronic Beach festival began in February. This year, because much of the groundwork had been already prepared, he was able to start a little later.

    Acts performing on Saturday included Strange Talk, an Australian pop foursome, the Chainsmokers, and See-I, a reggae group. The ticket fee included round-trip buses to and from the site, though where the pickup points were was not specified.

    The town’s permit conditions included a requirement that outdoor music be turned off by 9 p.m. and “all indoor music” be off by 11 p.m. The site does not have any interior space other than a small, concrete-block restroom.

    Lighting, the resolution ordered, would have to be confined to the site. In part, it mirrored the permit application, which read, “given the seclusive [sic] nature of the park, the lights will not be visible by any citizens.”

    Despite the town’s approval for the use of Fresh Pond Park from 5 to 11 p.m., the Electronic Beach Web page listed its opening at 4 p.m. and closing at midnight. Garbage was to be removed that night by Electronic Beach staff.

    Anthony Littman, who runs the East Hampton Town Parks and Building Maintenance Department, which is responsible for upkeep at Albert’s Landing Beach, did not return a call seeking comment.

    East Hampton Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson was absent from the town board meeting when Mr. Turley’s application was approved. He and Councilwoman Theresa Quigley were listed at the joint sponsors of the resolution.

    Mr. Turley submitted the application for the permit on or before June 25, well in advance of the 30-day deadline. On it he listed Harlem Lacrosse and Leadership of Manhattan as the “sponsoring organization,” noting in the document’s margin, “The H.L.L. organization is not a direct sponsor of the gathering; we simply allow them to set up a table” at the event. He also checked “yes” on a box indicating that the group had 501(c) tax status. A call seeking comment from the group was not returned.

    Though Mr. Turley had incorrectly named the actual site of the party on his application as Fresh Pond Park, he had described the address as the “end of Little Albert’s Landing Road.” In fact, the buses, personal vehicles, and support staff and performers’ vans were parked in the large Albert’s Landing Beach parking lot itself from at least the early afternoon on Saturday.

    There was no sign of East Hampton police presence, and a police spokesman said he did not know anything about it.

    Mr. Turley said that he was aware of at least one noise complaint and that the music had been turned down in response. “We apologize. We hate to have that,” he said.

    There was no mention of the ticket charge, food and beverage sponsors, or Electronic Beach in the material Mr. Turley provided with his permit application. As a paid event — and because the Harlem Lacrosse organization was allowed only to put up a table and was not the sole beneficiary, as he wrote on the form — Electronic Beach might well have been subjected to the town’s more stringent commercial event standards for the use of public land if this had been apparent to town officials.

    Had the event been viewed as a commercial venture at the outset, under the law, the application would have been first reviewed by the town board. Instead, as an ordinary mass gathering request, it went through the usual, convoluted channels, arriving before the board with only nine days left. By that time, online ticket sales were underway, and Mr. Turley had booked the entertainment, food, and other services.

    In a telephone interview Mr. Turley said that Electronic Beach was not a commercial event and that nearly all of the money from ticket sales went to costs, such as hiring performers and staff. Anything left over would be donated to Harlem Lacrosse and Leadership, he said.

    He said that an online link to an invitation had been sent only to a “private” group of people he knew and “friends of friends.” However, Electronic Beach’s Facebook page, Eventbrite ticket page, and promotional videos were all easily viewed after the event. The Facebook page and videos were made inaccessible by yesterday.

    “It was not a commercial venture. We just try to make it fun for our friends,” he said.

    In an interview Ms. Overby said the event and apparent misrepresentations on the application by Mr. Turley were disturbing. “It shows that people are using and abusing our beaches and natural resources, and we are going to have to protect ourselves.”

    “We may have to tighten procedures,” she said, including routing even routine mass gathering permit paperwork to the town board earlier in the process. “Taxpayers are getting punished for doing good,” she said, referring to the town’s long history of preserving open space and natural areas.

    About 100 Sagaponack residents appeared at the Village Hall on Saturday at an informational meeting on whether the village should establish its own police force, and the result was more questions than answers.

    There were “three camps” of opinions at the meeting, Mayor Donald Louchheim said during a follow-up discussion at a village board work session on Monday. Some want no more police presence and are worried about getting tickets. Another group, he said, does not want a village police department, but does not seem to object to more police presence. Then “there are those who would like to create a department, some for economic reasons and some for qualitative policing tailored to the area and under local control,” the mayor said.

    He proposed Monday that the village hire the retired Southampton Town police chief William Wilson to consult with the board at a monthly rate of $2,000. He would talk with neighboring police departments about what they would charge for ancillary, dispatch, jail, and investigative services, and also help the village board establish a timeline for implementing whatever plan they choose to embark on.

    The mayor has already said that Mr. Wilson is a candidate for the Sagaponack police chief’s position if a department is formed.

     “We pay the Town [of Southampton] $2.3 million a year; we do not get any service approximating that,” the mayor said Monday. He has asked the town for more policing for Sagaponack’s money, but has not heard anything, he said. He requested a single officer be assigned to Sagaponack all day, year round, rather than having no dedicated officers in the wintertime. “We either say grin and bear it or we at least proceed along the road toward creating our own department.”

    Mayor Louchheim said he expects that there is no political will in Southampton Town to satisfy Sagaponack’s requests. “The people who live west of the canal are the registered voters. We have 300 registered voters in Sagaponack in a town of 50,000. We are insignificant,” he said Monday. “The supervisor is running for re-election. She does not want to hear that she catered to the rich people instead of Flanders and Hampton Bays. For her, it’s a question of politics,” he said.

    On Saturday, the mayor laid out a number of policing options for the village, including a full-fledged police department and one with only part-time officers. He explained that the village would be part of a mutual aid agreement with other municipalities for additional manpower in the event of emergencies.

    “If we had our own department and got out from under Southampton police district, you the residents would save,” the mayor said Saturday.

    “Why can’t we get three officers for our 2.3 million?” asked Viola White of Town Line Road, who said she felt a need for more police in the village in the wintertime.

    William Barbour, a board member and former police officer himself, agreed. The village, he said, is paying for officers who may be as far away as Shinnecock Hills when they are needed. “When someone calls in sick, we’re the first sector that gets cut,” he said. “We need to have more officers assigned.”

    Mayor Louchheim added that it would also be nice to have an emergency medical technician nearby at all times, instead of depending on the Bridgehampton Fire Department. “We should have someone patrolling us on a regular basis,” he said, “not just responding to calls.”

    Robert Kall, a resident who is also a retired commanding police officer, warned of what may lie between the lines in the police department’s budget. “If you had five officers and one of them was out injured for six months, then what?” He also asked for details, such as “How many cars would you have?”

    “Where will these police officers come from and where would they be trained?” Mr. Kall asked three times, appearing increasingly angry when he did not get an answer. He also raised the specter of police-related lawsuits and the potential cost to taxpayers.

    And Gerald Kleinbaum of Sagg Main Street broached the issue of liability in the event of accidents.

    “This is a concern of ours,” Mayor Louchheim said. Responding to a resident who said he would like a village police department but doesn’t want to pay for it, the mayor said he felt similarly.

    “Is this really a solution or a problem?” asked Lynn Jeffrey, to much applause. “We haven’t demonstrated why we need more policing. What are they going to do here . . . besides give tickets to all of us?”

    “There should be one around when you need them,” Mr. Barbour, the village board member, said.

    Barbara Albright said she is in favor of a greater police presence to prevent crime and accidents, but asked who would maintain the cars and the service garage, where the station would be, and what the village would do for a jail.

    Harvey Swanking said he already feels harassed by the police officers and like he is being followed around Sagaponack to see if he will stop for a full three seconds at a stop sign when he is returning home for dinner.

    “The tentative budget is very vague,” said Jack French, another former police officer. He said the village would need more than one police car, for example, and called for “an itemized budget.”

    “I don’t want 51 percent support,” Mayor Louchheim said Saturday. “I don’t want it to be an issue that splits the village. . . . We will listen to the people.” He asked people at the meeting on Saturday to share their clear sentiments via letter or e-mail. A letter from the mayor listing his argument for a department and details about anticipated costs is posted on the village’s Web site, sagaponackvillage.org.

    While the mayor was anxious for approval Monday to hire Mr. Wilson, Lee Foster, a village board member who is the deputy mayor, called for caution. “I would definitely prefer to wait until next week,” Ms. Foster said Monday. And though Mr. Barbour said he could support the hiring of Mr. Wilson, Ms. Foster said, “This is not an issue that I would like to advance today.”

    Mayor Louchheim is expected to ask for a vote from the board next week. “Next week will be D-day.”

    If the board eventually decides that creating a police department is in the village’s best interest, it would develop a specific budget for the department and bring that to a public hearing, the mayor said.

    An overflow crowd of members and guests filled the community room of the Amagansett Library on Monday night as the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee heard grim predictions from a former official of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

    Walter F. Bundy, now principal of Coram-based Program Management and Mitigation Services, delivered a report commissioned by the East End Dunes Resident Association, whose members have vocally opposed the creation of a new town beach, with attendant parking and facilities, near their houses on Napeague.

    “We did not get the brunt” of Hurricane Sandy, Mr. Bundy told the gathering. “I was asked to take a look at just where the flooding risks were and how bad it was.”

    His report, “Description of Flooding Risk Faced by Napeague Stretch Communities,” included a wealth of topographic maps and aerial photographs taken immediately after the late-October hurricane. His evaluations and conclusions, he said, were based on historical records, FEMA studies, and projected sea-level rise models.

    “Unfortunately,” Mr. Bundy said, “Napeague means ‘land of flowing water.’ Look at the old maps from the 1800s — you’ll see that most of this was marshland, there were some dunes, and now it’s getting very developed.”

    The land, he said, is slowly sinking and drying out. “We also have sea-level rise, which is anticipated now to start impacting us not by 2100 but by 2050. Some of the predictions of what they’re showing, we’re looking at almost a two-inch-a-year increase in sea-level height. When you look at storm surge that comes along with a hurricane, add that on to it and the storm surge is going to be even more.”

    FEMA’s flood maps, Mr. Bundy continued, show just a small fraction of the true flood risk. A more accurate picture, he said, is illustrated by the SLOSH map (Sea, Lake, and Overland Surge from Hurricanes) included in his report. His SLOSH map of the land surrounding Napeague Harbor depicted flooding that would result from category 1,2,3, and 4 hurricanes. “Category 3 will be overstepping the dunes with a 25-foot wall of water. Category 4 — forget it,” he said.

    With respect to the EEDRA members’ concerns, Mr. Bundy said that “access roads [and] development in the dunes would make these areas the conduit for water coming in from a hurricane long before the dunes come out. Some of these areas only have an elevation of 10, 15 feet at these access points . . . Once it gets inside, it just follows the roads, because the roads are the lowest point . . . There’s no place for it to go, because the properties are going to hold the water back. The only saving grace we have is that we live on sand, and it will drain out.”

    Mr. Bundy, who worked for the Town of Southampton on flood and hazard-mitigation planning for seven years, recommended that the committee work with the Town of East Hampton to ensure federal funding to re-establish the dune system along the ocean. “It’s not going to be an easy task, because every single structure that’s within that dune system is going to be asked to be relocated,” he said. “ ‘Retreat’ is the word everybody should be looking at.”

    “You’re in a very vulnerable area,” Mr. Bundy warned. “Whatever happens to Napeague is going to impact the entire eastern part of Long Island. Once you look at the projected sea-level rise, if this area gets breached, Montauk becomes an island.”

    Kieran Brew, the committee’s chairman, turned to Councilwoman Sylvia Overby, the town board liaison to the committee. “Are these conclusions reasonable?” he asked. “Are they consistent with the town’s policies?”

    The town’s comprehensive plan, and its planning department, take all of this into account, she said, although the town does not discourage people from building on their land if that is their right. Noting that Kim Shaw, the town’s natural resources director, was in attendance, Ms. Overby said, “I want to make sure any decision I make for the community is based on good science, what the community wishes are, so we’re prepared. We do have an emergency preparedness committee that we’re working diligently on with Bruce Bates,” she said, referring to that committee’s coordinator.

    “Whatever happens,” said Mr. Bundy, “it’s going to have to be done with the town, and it’s a long-term project.”

    “It seems like we have two major actions here,” said Mr. Brew. “One of them is retreat, and the other is reconstruction or replenishment. I look at it as simply, would you rather move the house or move the ocean?”

    “Move the house and reconstruct the dunes,” Mr. Bundy suggested.

    Harvey Sands, who lives on Shore Road and said he was a member of EEDRA and a former member of the American Meteorological Society, echoed Mr. Bundy’s conclusions. “We are in danger of the result of ocean rise because of climate warming,” he said. “There’s no question, and anybody that challenges that is from the Dark Ages.”

    Montauk will be an island, he said flatly. “Sandy occurred as a once-in-a-hundred-year storm. Sandy will occur again as a once-in-10-year storm. If Sandy came up through Long Island, the ocean would have been connected to the bay, no question, and Montauk would have been an island. And it’s going to happen again.” Addressing Ms. Overby, he said, “Don’t doubt it, please.”

    Mr. Sands, who identified himself as a member of the Society of American Military Engineers, suggested that “we have to get [the Army Corps of Engineers] to replenish the beaches in Amagansett, not just Montauk.”

    As discussion segued into the town’s possible plan for a new beach along Napeague, Marty Ligorner, who has previously addressed the committee to voice opposition to such a project, repeated his contention that “to get to the beach you have to compromise the dunes . . . any plan to build a beach with parking will compromise and cause additional flooding.”

    “Marty, there’s no consensus on the board to build a beach in the area,” Ms. Overby said. “I have seen no statistics that are pushing us toward a beach. I don’t think anyone should be building a beach until we have all the statistics we need.”

    “Are we building it for us, or are we building for other people to use that  come from other places?” the councilwoman wondered. “I haven’t seen enough data to look positively on trying to build another beach for East Hampton . . . It’s very expensive to build a beach, and I’m not asking taxpayers to pay a lot of money to build a beach that a bus is going to drop other people off in . . . It is a concern to me that we build to what the community really wants and not to what another community might want here.” Most in the room applauded.

    Yet there is “a big push” from the town government to create a beach behind the Lobster Roll restaurant, said Kim Shaw, East Hampton’s director of natural resources. “We really have to take a step back” and evaluate four proposed sites, she said. “Personally, I think we shouldn’t pave paradise . . . we should look at exactly what you said, Sylvia, all our bay beaches and other beaches that have the potential for expansion before we go and pave a pristine area like Napeague. It’s all very preliminary.”

    Ms. Overby reminded the audience that the public was welcome at any town board meeting. “Your concerns are very valid. We will listen,” she said.

    Fort Pond House, a building on Fort Pond in Montauk that was used by community groups before it was condemned, and the four acres on which it sits will be taken off the sale block and designated as a park to be named in honor of the late Carol Morrison. The decision was the result of a split vote by East Hampton Town Board on Tuesday.

    Ms. Morrison was a well-known Montauk resident and environmental advocate who was a founder of both the Concerned Citizens of Montauk and the Third House Nature Center. The groups had sued the town over a decision by the Wilkinson administration’s Republican majority three years ago to sell the property.

    Town Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc, a Democrat who began pressing the board to take the property off the market after taking office in 2012, made his fourth call for a vote on the matter at Tuesday’s work session. With a swing yes vote by Republican Councilman Dominick Stanzione, along with the support of Democratic Councilwoman Sylvia Overby, the measure finally gained success.

    Mr. Stanzione’s fellow Republicans, Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson and Councilwoman Theresa Quigley continued to support the sale, and before the meeting was over they unleashed angry words, accusing board members, including Mr. Stanzione, of playing politics.

    Mr. Van Scoyoc said a management plan would be developed for the property, “but the intent here is to allow it as a venue for community activities.” However, in an e-mail yesterday, he said that because the building  had “suffered from complete neglect for about three years” it was possible that demolition, rather than renovation, would be required.

    To avoid burdening taxpayers with the cost, he said the money could come from community fund-raising or through a lease or rental agreement with the organizations that would use the property. He added that the plan should not exclude general public use for passive recreation or as a meeting place. “These are a few of the possibilities,” he said.

     Concerned Citizens of Montauk and the Third House Nature Center, as well as dozens of residents, had appeared en masse at Town Hall vehemently opposing the sale of the property, noting that it provided one of only two town-owned public accesses to the pond. But in a 3-to-2 vote, with the board’s two Democratic members dissenting, the majority, citing a need to sell assets in the face of the $28 million deficit accumulated by the previous Democratic administration, put the property on the market for $2 million.

    An Article 78 lawsuit that is still in State Supreme Court followed, alleging that the town acted illegally in authorizing the sale. A separate federal lawsuit was settled. It named Mr. Wilkinson and Ms. Quigley, asserting violation of the Constitutional rights of the sale’s opponents, based on allegations that the town closed the facility in retaliation for their vocal opposition. The plaintiffs, the nature center and its director, Ed Johann, were then allowed to enter the house to retrieve their property, and were given free use of space at the town’s Montauk Community Playhouse.  

     Mr. Stanzione, who had voted previously to authorize the sale, and then to proceed with it, had abstained from voting on a similar resolution offered by Mr. Van Scoyoc only last week, leaving the decision tied. “If you want my vote, time is not up,” he told the Democrats, who were pushing for a decision.

    This week, Mr. Stanzione, who is running for re-election, not only supported Mr. Van Scoyoc’s resolution, but made the suggestion that the town “name this park after an outstanding Montauk citizen — Carol Morrison. “Explaining his changed vote, Mr. Stanzione said the town’s financial position has stabilized. “I recognize that we have a new set of facts on the ground. As a result of the work that the supervisor has done, I take the position that we no longer need to sell this asset.”

    “You don’t change course, regardless of the success or failure of the year that you’re in,” Mr. Wilkinson said.

    Jeremy Samuelson, the executive director of Concerned Citizens of Montauk, said Tuesday that he was thrilled with the vote to rescind the sale and with naming the park for Ms. Morrison. “It’s never too late to do the right thing,” he said of Mr. Stanzione.

    Mr. Samuelson said his group’s attorney would review the resolution “to ensure that the public interest is being upheld” before the remaining litigation is withdrawn.

    “C.C.O.M.’s hope would be to see this park returned to its former uses by the Montauk School, the Boy Scouts, Third House Nature Center, Hampton Shakespeare, and all of the other groups that used this beautiful park on a routine basis. It is truly a shame that taxpayer money has been wasted over three years fighting to disenfranchise the people of Montauk, rather than making this park as amazing a place as it could be,” Mr. Samuelson said.

    “It’s a shame, in both cases,” he added, meaning not only taxpayer money but his organization’s. Costs were not immediately available from the town; an e-mail sent by C.C.O.M. to its members said the group had spent “nearly $30,000” on the lawsuit.

    Although their wishes were clearly outvoted, Mr. Wilkinson and Ms. Quigley continued to press the matter. They took issue with details of the resolution, questioned the future use of the site, and painted the decision to take the property off the market as a political one.

    Ms. Quigley said the vote was “another example of just doing something without thinking it through.” She repeated assertions she had made last week that the property was never used by the public. She also raised the specter of Hanta virus, pointing out that the house is in proximity to another where a resident, who later died, contracted that disease, which is linked to mouse droppings. Among the reasons Fort Pond House was closed to the public, she said, was that there was a mouse infestation.

    “It’s not a park,” Mr. Wilkinson insisted. The town, he noted, had defended its position that the site is not parkland — a key allegation in C.C.O.M.’s lawsuit.

    “Is a public hearing required to make it a park, John?” Mr. Wilkinson asked Mr. Jilnicki, the town attorney. No, Mr. Jilnicki replied, just a majority vote. Mr. Wilkinson did not let the matter drop. “So the board, in unanimity, is saying that this property wasn’t parkland?” That is what the town has maintained legally, Mr. Jilnicki conceded. Mr. Van Scoyoc’s resolution did not address the property’s previous status, he said, but only designates it as a park from here on.

    “Whether it was or not, it certainly will be,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said. “The litigation becomes moot.”

    “I stand by the fact that it was never a community asset. It was used by one or two groups sporadically,” Mr. Wilkinson said. “The asset was in disrepair. I stand by the fact that the town doesn’t benefit by the asset.” Raising his voice, Mr. Wilkinson said, “This is purely a political device; that’s all it is.”

    “Speaking of politics,” Ms. Quigley said, “Dominick Stanzione masterminded the Republican budget of 2009 that included a plan to sell assets.”

    “I supported sale of this property at the time of crisis . . . to fix the problem that we inherited,” Mr. Stanzione responded.

    Speaking by phone yesterday, Ed Johann, the president of the Third House Nature Center, said he was “absolutely thrilled to hear” the news. “It’s been a long struggle to get to this point,” he said. “We were hoping for something like this. It’s very good news — especially the Carol Morrison part.”

    He called Ms. Morrison the “lion” who led the charge on local environmental problems for years. It was Ms. Morrison who first suggested that the Fort Pond property, which had been a private residence, should be in public hands. “She could be fierce,” Mr. Johann said. The property was purchased in 2003 for $890,000.

    At the meeting on Tuesday, Councilwoman Overby said “Ms. Morrison did so much for Montauk. She was a stalwart. I think it is an appropriate use of her name. I think she would be very proud.”

   These are the lemonade commercial days of summer. Everything is hazy and golden like an old photograph. Children catch fireflies in jars and old women fan themselves as they gently push the porch swing back and forth with their toes.

    Yeah, right.

    The approaching end of August means traffic and no parking and packed beaches and long lines for ice cream, movie tickets, gas, groceries, sanity. There is almost no place you can go on this small spit of sand where you can be completely alone, free from the heckling of the outside world. I mean, maybe, perhaps, if you live behind iron gates and down a long winding driveway that ends with a house and the Atlantic Ocean pounding against the shore, you might not notice the near-constant wail of ambulance sirens.

    But, we’ve almost made it to Labor Day, so here are the last of my recommendations for how to win the eternal gratitude of your waitress:

    14. No touching. Grabbing my arm, tapping my shoulder, touching my hair, these things are not okay. When I waitress I have very little personal space as it is and I don’t appreciate you invading it.

    15. Don’t tell me to smile. What I do with my face is my business, not yours. I don’t walk around scowling. I don’t come over to your table projecting anger. I smooth my features, put some pep in my step, and by the time I make it over to you, I’m all rainbows and sunshine.

    Please allow me to drop the act without comment as I make my way from table 59 to the kitchen at the height of dinner service, when I have six other tables clamoring for my attention, to inform the chef that the woman who ordered her salmon well done is now complaining that it’s too dry and she won’t eat it.

    16. Don’t complain to me about the long wait for a table. I truly sympathize with your inability to plan ahead, your utter helplessness when faced with the insurmountable task of picking up the phone to make a reservation, and the exhausting struggle you face while you stand at the door gripped with a paralyzing fear that all the food will be gone by the time you sit down.

    17. Leave your kids at home. But, if you insist on feeding them in a public eatery, please do not let them order for themselves if the restaurant is super busy. I know it’s a learning experience and everything, but I do not have five minutes to wait for Little Johnny to stutter out “macaroni and cheese.”

    However, eating out can be an excellent time to instill proper dining etiquette, as in: Don’t let your kids run around the restaurant. Don’t let your kids mix food into glasses filled with soda. Don’t let your kids dump salt, pepper, or sugar onto the table. Don’t let your kids have a meltdown that destroys dinner for everyone else.

   If your child does throw a tantrum, it’s your responsibility as a parent and as a human being conscious of others to take that kid outside and deal with it there.

    18. Remove your various electronic accessories and/or protective eyewear from the exact spot on the table where I am attempting to set down your steaming hot dinner. Thank you.

    19. Don’t tell me you’re ready to order if you’re not ready to order. Being ready to order food does not mean taking a poll of your dining companions to find out who’s having what and if they think you should get the salmon or the swordfish while I stand there singing Britney Spears lyrics in my head to keep from screaming in frustration.

    20. Treat me like a person. You’re the one leaving me a tip or none at all. The power is in your hands. Paying (or not) for my service doesn’t give you free license to be rude or mean or dismissive.

    You might not do any single one of the 19 other things I listed as guidelines for how to behave in a restaurant, but as long as you observe number 20, I won’t “accidentally” dump a glass of water in your lap.