Holy knitted nitwits! What could better invoke the scents of snow-laden pines and ski lodges with log fires than a Norwegian Sweater Party?

When Siv Cedering and David Swickard of Amagansett planned such an event to lift people's spirits in mid-February, they had in mind the icy blasts and three-foot snowdrifts of last year. As it was, the weather was unseasonably mild, and partygoers on Saturday soon learned that Norwegian sweaters are hot.

There were classic sweaters and facsimile sweaters, sweaters with signs on them and sweaters with a small moose on the shoulder, authentic sweaters and nasty polyester ones. Prizes, which seem to have been awarded to nearly everyone, for everything ranging from the most pornographic to the most etymological to simply the most - seven - included a free trip to the North Pole on skis, a single reindeer horn, and a packet of KNACKEBROD.

Form and function, art and business, come together in a converted potato barn in Bridgehampton where a leading publisher of art posters has its hideaway warehouse.

From there, Steve and Judy Romm create the everyman's version of artworks that could otherwise be unattainable.

While exposure is the obvious commercial benefit for artists who allow their work to be published as posters, with royalties a bit farther down the road, Mr. and Mrs. Romm are quick to assert that posters are art too.

And theirs, they say, are among the best, winning awards nearly every year at the annual exhibit of the Association of the Graphic Arts, both for production quality and design.

Poster Pioneers

Toulouse-Lautrec and Alphonse Mucha were among the pioneers of poster art. Lautrec's dance-hall girls and Mucha's turn-of-the-century actresses made the artists known to thousands who might never have heard of them otherwise.

"If 400 people go to an opening, only one could buy the original work," as Mr. Romm put it, "but 400 could take it home anyway."

Romm Art Creations' posters are sold to distributors all over the world. A poster and frame shop in Sag Harbor, for example, buys them from a distributor in Seattle, a deal that has some posters traveling 6,000 miles to end up five miles away.

High Volume, Low Profile

That is the way the Romms, who live nearby in Wainscott, prefer to do business. "We don't do retail," said Mr. Romm, who would rather keep quiet the warehouse and design studio's location.

"It's easier to accomplish big things when you have a low profile," explained the company's sales director, Ellen Silverberg, a retired gallery owner.

Romm produces three or four catalogue supplements a year, each one with up to 40 new posters. A typical run is about 3,000 to 5,000 posters.

Mr. Romm, an art and photography teacher for 17 years, worked later as an artist's agent, but decided after two years he would rather have the artists working for him.

Early Artists

He and his wife, an art teacher herself and a photographer, began their business 10 years ago in Glen Cove, publishing reproductions of Richard Ely's graceful fashion sketches, Fran Wohlfelder's vibrant landscapes, Mary Deloite Arendt's watercolors of the American Southwest, acrylic paintings by Romero Britto, also known for those sly Absolut ads, and others.

Their earliest artists have stayed with them, their name recognition and profitability growing one with the other.

Ms. Wohlfelder, who now lives in Virginia, used to exhibit her impressionistic acrylics in a tiny gallery in Nassau County, and asked $400 to $500 apiece before she agreed to mass reproduction. She was recently commissioned to paint 17 aboard-ship murals for a luxury cruise line, at about $10,000 apiece, said Mr. Romm.

'This industry runs in trends. Impressionism one year, Abstract the next. In the last two or three months, there has been a huge resurgence in the photography market.'

Recognition

Elizabeth Ann Tops, co-owner of the Lizan Tops Gallery in East Hampton, said artists who allow their work to be published are, for the most part, "not famous."

"There are few galleries and a lot of artists. It's one way of getting some recognition," said Ms. Tops.

Karen Lind, for example, a Lizan Tops artist who handpaints photographs, has her work published by Romm. "Karen's work is feminine and sophisticated. It lends itself to posters," said Ms. Tops.

Romm Art Creations had 40 employees at one time - "There were people around we didn't even know. It was total insanity," said Mr. Romm - and the owners never took vacations, except for a once-in-a-while weekend in the Hamptons.

In 1991, they started the yearlong process of moving to the East End.

Quality-Of-Life Move

"We wanted to be as close to paradise as we could. . . . We downscaled, and vastly upscaled our quality of life," said Mr. Romm.

Ms. Silverberg owned the Studio 53 gallery, then on Park Avenue in Manhattan, for 20 years. Year after year, she and the Romms would wave to each other at trade shows and expositions.

A scant few months after she retired, two years ago, she "came by to say hello, and looked fabulous," said Mrs. Romm.

That was because she had left her gallery, she told the couple, and moved to a house in Northwest Woods. They deemed her retirement ended, and named her Romm Art's director of sales.

Mr. Romm described the time-consuming process that costs the company, marketing included, up to $10,000 for each poster it publishes.

It begins with painstaking color separation, three printers around Long Island whose identities the Romms keep to themselves as "a trade secret," sifting through multitudinous weights and shades of paper, and correcting and recorrecting the dot registration.

The artwork comes to the Romms in a variety of ways. Sometimes an artist will submit work, sometimes a gallery will commission a poster for an upcoming show, and sometimes they go looking for something particular.

"We have to agree, or we don't publish," said Mrs. Romm. "It's a significant investment to launch a new artist."

Art Photography

Compromises happen easily, often with fortuitous results.

"Judy has found the potential in artists who later turned out to be our top sellers, when I didn't see it," said Mr. Romm.

A Sunday drive last year brought them to Gary Bartoloni's gallery in Greenport, where they found his black and white photographs of large trees, mystical images emerging from a mist that gives the trees a druidic power.

Mr. Bartoloni, who lives in Noyac, is now one of several artists featured in Romm Art's latest venture, the marketing of art photography.

Their upcoming catalogue will feature nostalgic glimpses of a vanishing East End by Kathryn Szoka, a Sag Harborite working in Polaroid transfers; Tulla Booth's flowers of O'Keefesque proportions, Richard Calvo's pristine Hamptons beach scenes, and Lou Spitalnick's platinum-plate still lifes, Old World images by a master of a disappearing craft.

"This industry runs in trends, Impressionism one year, Abstract the next. In the last two or three months, there has been a huge resurgence in the photography market," said Mr. Romm.

There is "an exceptionally high level of quality photographers here," he added.

Spitalnick Series

A working lunch last week at Mr. Spitalnick's house in Montauk narrowed 40 prints to 10 chosen for reproduction as posters, the second series of Spitalnick posters Romm will undertake.

Mr. Spitalnick said that had the Romms not approached him a couple of months ago, the idea probably would not have occurred to him.

"I'm so busy, trying to print for shows and to do new work. . . . Artists generally don't think about the commercial presentation of their work," he said.

"And, there's a certain amount of hesitation about turning your work into a popular icon. If everyone likes it, then maybe it's not so special."

Ms. Silverberg, on the other hand, pointed out that collectors often buy posters before they start acquiring original works.

"Demand is created from exposure," she said.

The Internal Revenue Service is demanding back taxes from the fishing community on their General Electric settlement money, which is a pity.

It is more than 10 years now since the Food and Drug Administration and the State of New York banned the harvesting of P.C.B.-polluted striped bass in state waters, and during that time bass fishermen who depended on the "money fish" to put them over the top have been forced to remake not only their jobs but their lives.

What they lost in the bass ban was more than money; for many it was the tools of their trade. Their fishing boats, nets, and other gear became, for all intents and purposes, worthless.

The fishermen sued G.E., whose illegal discharge of P.C.B.s into the Hudson River had triggered the ban, for the destruction of their livelihood and for their obsolete property. In 1994, nine years after the ban was imposed, they were awarded compensation. The I.R.S., however, claims the money they received represented reportable income, and seeks taxes, interest, and penalties on it.

At the time of the settlement, both sides were aware that might happen, though they hoped it would not. The lawyers who brought the G.E. lawsuit (the husband of The Star's associate editor was one of them) did not see the case as strictly about the loss of income. No fishermen, so far as was known, had been forced to apply for public assistance because they could no longer seine for stripers. Instead, they found other jobs, perhaps less rewarding to their spirits but more to their pocketbooks.

The compensation they received was paid for the loss of their fishery and related property. Their lawyers and accountants accepted that, and so did General Electric, which never sent the fishermen the 1099 forms that would have been required if it understood the payments to be taxable.

To argue too much with the I.R.S., however, is expensive, and the result, hinging on Byzantine rules and regulations, is uncertain.

There may, however, be another solution. This district's Congressional Representative, Michael B. Forbes, should consider submitting in the House what is called a "private bill" on the fishermen's behalf, requesting they be exempted from this unjust assessment.

Almost since the tax system came into being, Congress has ameliorated the effects of harsh rulings by enacting private bills. In recent years, such resolutions have absolved farmers from paying taxes on Federal money given them not to grow crops, provided relief to rich individuals whose wheelings and dealings brought unanticipated tax consequences, and helped out entertainment and food conglomerates by allowing them to deduct expenses the I.R.S. had deemed non-deductible, among other things.

Mr. Forbes, who has always lent an attentive ear to the problems of the fishing community, may have the opportunity in the months ahead to help them as never before. Perhaps he can even see the fishermen through the storm of I.R.S. demands to safe harbor.

Southampton Town will receive an award from Gov. George E. Pataki on Tuesday for the supposed success of its recycling program. In announcing the award, Supervisor Vincent Cannuscio praised his town's "overall recycling rate" of 49.74 percent. Unfortunately, this figure is highly misleading.

Southampton's pay-per-bag trash disposal program was implemented in January 1995. It provides a financial incentive for individuals and business owners to reduce the amount of garbage they create and to recycle as much as they can. The hitch is that Southampton's transfer stations do not accept trash from carters, who instead truck what they collect elsewhere.

Since town officials don't keep figures on how much garbage is leaving town, there is no way to quantify it. However, it generally is understood in the industry that carters and those who haul their debris by themselves split the waste stream in half.

That leaves us with the proposition that Southampton actually is recycling only half of half of its solid waste. Furthermore, knowing it is traditionally true that those who carry their own debris to the transfer stations are relatively enthusiastic about recycling, why isn't the touted recycling rate much higher?

While Southampton is to be commended for its pay-per-bag program, it has abdicated the major part of its responsibility. The award it is about to receive is hollow.

Before we scold Southampton too harshly, however, we should note that East Hampton Town seems to be following suit. It has eliminated low-grade plastics from its list of mandatory recyclable materials because they are of little value in the current market and it has opted out of the international market (by not baling any recyclables, except newspaper).

While it is true that the market for recyclable materials has all but disappeared, making dumping at landfills elsewhere and incineration the cheapest methods of disposal, at least for the time being, there are more environmentally sound ways to go.

Private carters, with lots of customers, the ability to take garbage long distances, and the efficiencies of scale, are in a position to charge low prices and take over. But, while the economic argument is seductive and may help municipalities get out of the mess created by their past dependency on landfills, privatization is not the answer to long-term environmental protection.

In the meantime, we wish whoever selected Southampton for the Governor's recycling award had looked at the larger picture.

"Everyman, I will go with thee, and be thy guide." - Anon.

The one-woman corporate phenomenon that is Martha Stewart rented Guild Hall one morning last week to introduce a new line of bed and bath furnishings to representatives of the metropolitan media, some of whom turned around the next morning and bit the hand that also fed them a lavish buffet lunch.

Why hold the briefing in East Hampton? Because, Ms. Stewart told her guests as they arrived at her Lily Pond Lane house afterward, "I have 13 bedrooms!"

All 13 were elegantly dressed for the occasion: sheets, comforters, shams, and bedskirts in ginghams and florals, madras designs and solids, with coordinating bath towels, rugs, shower curtains, and other accessories.

The Martha Touch

The new line, which includes 256 "original" paint colors, added a distinctively Martha touch to the collection of antique beds in Ms. Stewart's more than 100-year-old residence.

It will be sold exclusively at Kmart. The retail giant and the lifestyle guru have had a licensing agreement for several years.

The idea of the new joint venture, Ms. Stewart explained to more than two dozen reporters taking copious notes in the John Drew Theater, was to "give my style to as large an audience as possible - to teach."

"In every way," said the woman who has become the last word in homemaking, "I am a teacher. We're going to bring along," into the fold, as it were, "those customers who don't have the imagination to mix and match" fabric designs and patterns themselves.

Teachers And Preachers

Appropriately enough, Ms. Stewart's circa 1873 house once belonged to one of East Hampton's memorable preachers. It stands on a site that used to be called "Divinity Hill," for the many ministers from New York and Brooklyn who stayed at its boarding houses or in "cottages" such as hers.

Old-timers still call her place the DeWitt Talmage house, for a longtime summer resident for whom it was renovated extensively in 1893. The Rev. Talmage's fiery sermons in the city reportedly attracted as many as 3,000 parishioners on an average Sunday.

Ms. Stewart has completed her own renovation of the shingled house since buying it about five years ago, including a circular croquet court designed within a square of rose bushes.

Beach House Inspired

The editor of Martha Stewart Living, Stephen Drucker of Mill Hill Lane, East Hampton, said that Ms. Stewart loves East Hampton, and fashioned much of the "look" of "Martha Stewart Everyday," as the new line is called, from her sense of a classic East Hampton beach house.

Mr. Drucker came up with names for the new line of Sherwin-Williams interior latex paints. Many, he noted, such as "sunflower," "sandcastle," "beach glass," and "Atlantic," conjure up the natural hues of the East End.

Reporters who attended the briefing represented the Associated Press, The New York Times, The New York Post, The Daily News, Newsday, Time magazine, and various home and textile trade publications, among others.

"Beware," wrote The Daily News the next day, "Martha Stewart wants to go to bed with you." The New York Times noted that it is "yet to be seen whether a working mother with two toddlers has time to follow Ms. Stewart's advice for making beds with sharp hospital corners, as demonstrated on the store videos."

The Center Core

Speaking of her unlikely alliance with Kmart, Ms. Stewart said her partnership with a mass merchandiser was an opportunity to be in contact with a "different kind of customer - those with a limited income, or who are frugal."

Some 77 percent of all Americans shop at a Kmart at least once in the course of a year, she said. With more than 2,100 outlets, the chain is reportedly the country's second largest discount retailer.

Ms. Stewart added that Floyd Hall, the chief executive officer and president of Kmart, "treats me as a true partner, not just a licensee."

Mr. Hall himself was on hand. "We know we have a winner," he said of the new line. Three thousand vans of Martha Stewart Everyday merchandise have been transported to 750 Kmart stores in the last three weeks, he said.

Because of Ms. Stewart, he said, "domestics" have been moved from their traditional spot at the back of the stores, up to the "center core."

Big Ad Campaign

Most of the product line is being manufactured offshore, in such countries as Peru, Mexico, Columbia, India, and Egypt, and Ms. Stewart stressed that she has representatives "inspecting every plant" to assure that appropriate working conditions are maintained.

"I don't want any problems with the manufacture of my products," she said, such as other celebrities have experienced.

As to the venture's prospects, she said she started her magazine five years ago with 250,000 copies, but "knew it would be popular." Today its circulation is 2.3 million.

"I have the same feeling about this," she said.

The new line will cost from $1.99 for washcloths to $39.99 for king-sized sheet sets. Kmart expects to introduce a higher-priced line in all-cotton, including Egyptian cotton sheets and towels, in the fall.

Television commercials introducing the goods, part of a $10 million national multimedia advertising campaign starring Ms. Stewart, begin running today.

Living Omnimedia

Ms. Stewart has a second East Hampton house on Georgica Pond, where she has been involved in a legal wrangle with her neighbor, Harry Macklowe, a real estate magnate, over a wetlands area bordering their properties. Mr. Macklowe is said to be concerned also that Ms. Stewart intends to use the Georgica house, a modern structure designed and owned by the late Gordon Bunshaft, as a media site.

Earlier this month, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, her umbrella corporation, acquired Living Enterprises, which includes Ms. Stewart's monthly magazine, from Time Warner. The corporation also owns her syndicated television programs, a series of books, a newspaper column syndicated in more than 200 papers, her merchandising partnerships, such as those announced this week, and a mail-order catalogue company, "Martha by Mail."

Forbes magazine recently estimated the value of her enterprises at $200 million.

The products in Ms. Stewart's new line can be ordered from a toll-free number or from Kmart's on-line Website, which are the only ways The Star's readers can purchase them, unless they travel to Old Country Road in Riverhead - the closest Kmart.

The art of the duo piano team is above all the art of cooperation. Technical mastery and mature musicianship will make a successful soloist. But to these qualities in the case of duo pianists must be added a sensitivity to each other's playing so fine that if listeners close their eyes they will think they're hearing one person.

On Saturday evening at the Fine Arts Theater of Southampton College, a large audience had the pleasure of hearing such playing from the young team of George Petrou and Christos Papageorgiou. An occasional nod seemed the only visual communication necessary between them. The rest was in their hands.

Fresh from an invitational performance in Chicago at UNICEF's 50th anniversary gala, Mr. Petrou and Mr. Papageorgiou played this second concert on their first U.S. tour to celebrate Southampton Town's approval of new architectural plans for the Greek Orthodox Church there. Their concert proved a celebration of music as well.

Folk Tunes

They opened with "Eight Dances From the Greek Islands" by Yiannis Constandinithis. Virtually unknown in this country, Constandinithis studied in Berlin before returning to his native Greece to pursue a career in writing both serious and popular music. Writing popular works under the reversed name of Constantin Yiannis, he died in 1970.

For this listener his "Dances" were the discovery of the evening. Eight folk tunes arranged in a general sequence of slow-fast-slow with considerable contrapuntal and rhythmic complexity revealed a lively and sophisticated talent bearing favorable comparison to that of composers like Bela Bartok and Benjamin Britten when they also set folk tunes.

Lightly influenced by the French Impressionists, the writing combined mastery of composition for two pianos with a robust and affectionate rendering of Greek atmosphere and culture. The wine-dark Aegean Sea as well as the kind of sky so expansive that Henry Miller once said it made him want to bathe in it were present in the music, as was the exuberant stamping of feet in taverna dances.

Mr. Petrou and Mr. Papageorgiou played it all as if the winning of Greek independence depended on their performance.

Notes Of Passion

Rachmaninoff's "Suite for Two Pianos" ("Fantaisies Tableaux") followed. A somewhat colorless playing of the opening barcarole led to more sensitive exposition of the next two sections, "La Nuit . . . L'Amour" and "Larmes" ("Tears"). The love here was passionate and the tears, embodied in a four-note descending line on which the whole movement is built, went from mild sniffling to wild weeping.

In "Paques" ("Easter") the suite ended with a grand finale of ringing Russian church bells. Written when Rachmaninoff was only 20, this Opus 5 is already technically virtuostic.

If its emotionalism is sometimes youthfully excessive, strong intimations can also be heard of the mature passions gloriously expressed but imperiously controlled that make his later piano concertos such masterpieces.

Fiend Done Justice

After the intermission, Mr. Petrou and Mr. Papageorgiou switched pianos and launched into the Polish composer Alexandre Tansman's "Fantaisie on the Waltzes of Johann Strauss." This proved the least distinguished composition of the evening. An interweaving of snatches from six Strauss waltzes, the music was certainly pleasing and clever but ventured no farther.

The evening ended with a bang-up performance of Franz Liszt's "Reminiscences of 'Don Juan.' " Based on themes from Mozart's opera "Don Giovanni," "Reminiscences" filters Mozart's dramatic classicism through Liszt's extravagant romanticism.

No one can summon such splendid noise from a piano as Liszt, and here, with two at his disposal, he outdoes himself. Mr. Petrou and Mr. Papageorgiou did virtuostic justice to each fiendish note and impassioned glissando Liszt uses to express both his homage to a great predecessor and his own interpretation of - and perhaps identification with - the Don's notorious activities.

Already winners of many international competitions, George Petrou and Christos Papageorgiou should meet with much success on their debut U.S. tour. Judging by the reactions of Saturday's audience, they would always be welcome on the East End.

AMAGANSETT

Kabonac Corp. to Lawrence and Luisa Kane, Acorn Place, $178,000.

Worth to Robin Weingast and Claire Zeppier, Broadview Road, $725,000.

BRIDGEHAMPTON

Two Trees L.L.C. to Michael Tarnopol, Hayground Road, $625,000.

Schmerin to Anne and James Tammaro, Lockwood Avenue, $350,000.

EAST HAMPTON

Hoskins to Donald and Donna Cohen, Town Lane, $150,000.

MONTAUK

Dryer to Margaret and John Fruin, Hoppin Avenue, $166,500.

Harrington Prop. Assoc. to Passage East, West Lake Drive, $250,000.

NORTH HAVEN

Taylor to Kim Taipale and Nicole Miller, West Drive, $965,000.

NORTHWEST

Murphy to Michael Weiskoff, Three Mile Harbor Drive, $315,000.

NOYAC

Timberland Homes to Edwin Schallert and Cathleen Bacich, Fourteen Hills Court, $250,000.

SAG HARBOR

D'Agostino to John and Gail Wroldsen, Harbor Drive, $150,000.

Zaykowski to David Cummings, Meadowlark Lane, $165,000.

SAGAPONACK

Swans Neck Assoc. to Stephen Dobi, Swans Neck Lane, $215,000.

SPRINGS

Hammer to Denis Huderski and Philip Puma, Deep Six Drive, $186,500.

WAINSCOTT

Murphy to David and Samuel Hartstein, Cowhill Lane, $228,000.

WATER MILL

Zito to Clifford Stockman, Kellis Pond Lane, $428,000.

Halsey to Robert O'Kunewicz, Deerfield Road, $160,000.

Water Mill Shoppes, the controversial 30,000-square-foot shopping complex proposed next to Water Mill's existing commercial core, could be approved within the next two months.

The Southampton Town Planning Board completed its final public hearing on the plan last Thursday, concluding more than four years of site-plan review and leaving the board with 62 days to act on the application. Those who spoke had mostly praise for the final plan.

Harvey Auerbach, the developer, is proposing a complex of six retail buildings arrayed around a central commons. The 3.6-acre site is directly east of the existing Main Street core of Water Mill, across Station Road.

Major Changes

The plan underwent major changes during the lengthy environmental review process.

Most notably, the layout concept changed from simply extending the "streetscape" of Main Street along the road, to a central commons.

Also, the size of the buildings shrank, from 7,000 to 9,000 square feet each to between 3,500 and 5,000 square feet each.

Steve Biasetti, an environmental analyst with The Group for the South Fork, called the final site plan a "vast improvement" over the original. The layout would make for an "attractive village center," he said.

Traffic Impact

Aesthetics aside, however, Mr. Biasetti had concerns over the overall scope of the development.

Though the site plan had changed from three large buildings to six smaller ones, the overall floor space had not been reduced, he noted. The development could have a major traffic impact in what is already a "traffic hot spot," he warned.

A traffic light at the intersection with Station Road may be required by the State Department of Transportation.

Marlen Hertzga, a Water Mill resident, commended Mr. Auerbach for modifying the plan. "I do like this one. It's more in character with the community," she said. "This is the best plan he's put forward."

Lighting Concerns

Mrs. Hertzga and others who spoke voiced concerns, however, over the proposed lighting plan and how garbage would be handled.

Gloria Rabinowitz, who chairs the Water Mill Citizens Advisory Committee, said the amount of lighting proposed was "excessive" and "out of line with the neighboring residential area." She noted that several nearby businesses have used fewer poles and lower wattages to light their properties: the Southampton Cinema, P.C. Richard, and Southampton Hospital, for example.

Erica Van Acker, the co-owner of the Station Bistro, just behind the site, also brought up lighting, but said she was more concerned about Station Road. She asked that the road not be blocked when construction began.

Those concerns aside, she agreed that "indeed, this plan has come a long distance."

Decision By Mid-April

One speaker last Thursday wasn't so resigned. "I'm a little bewildered," said Lester Rosenfeld, who warned an approval would go against the feeling of the majority of the hamlet's residents. "I'm sure you have a sense of what the people of Water Mill feel, as a hamlet," he told board members.

He even suggested there was "a groundswell" of residents that would boycott the new stores. "There are empty stores right now . . . The last thing in the world we need is another project not too far away that will fall down because of a lack of business."

Dennis Finnerty, the Planning Board's vice chairman, reminded Mr. Rosenfeld the board could not arbitrarily deny any application. "Many people have the perception we have the power to send an applicant packing," he said.

With the public hearing closed, and an environmental impact statement completed and accepted, the board must now render a decision by April 16.

Imagine this: "It's 7:30 on a February night. The previous week has been mild and rainy. There is still a hint of moisture in the air. . . You've hiked through the damp woods. A pond appears. There under the canopy of glistening tree branches and twinkling stars you see a multitude of salamanders, silky black with brilliant yellow polka dots."

According to the South Fork Natural History Society, the setting is perfect for salamanders to lay their eggs. On Saturday, Andy Sabin, the society's president, will lead an expedition, weather permitting, to view the endangered eastern tiger salamander doing that in the wilds of Bridgehampton. The date may change if the weather isn't right. To make reservations and get the exact time and place, those interested have been asked to call the society's Amagansett office.

Full Moon Hikes

The East Hampton Trails Preservation Society has scheduled full- moon hikes for tomorrow and Saturday nights, the first at Barcelona Neck, near Sag Harbor, the second in Hither Woods, Montauk.

Full-moon hikers will meet at 8 p.m. and the hikes will take about two hours. Tomorrow's group will meet at the intersection of Swamp Road and Route 114; Saturday's at the Hither Hills Overlook parking lot off Montauk State Boulevard. If the moon is hidden by an overcast sky, the hikes will be canceled. Rick Whalen is the guide.

During the day on Saturday, Amy and Tom Ruhle will lead walkers through Hither Hills and Hither Woods on an about-five-mile hike. Again, the Overlook is the gathering place, and hikers have been asked to be there by 10:30 a.m.

Up Tuckahoe Hill

The Group for the South Fork has scheduled a hike from 10 a.m. until noon, up Tuckahoe Hill in South ampton Town, on Saturday for a panoramic view of the South Fork and Peconic Bay.

The Group has been researching breeding birds in the area for the past few years. Those planning to participate have been asked to call the Group's Bridgehampton headquarters for reservations and details. Vikki Hilles is expected to lead the pack.

A little farther afield, a workshop for winter birders will be presented by Tom Damiani of the North Fork Audubon Society on Friday and Saturday. Tomorrow, from 7 to 9 p.m., at the offices of the Cornell Cooperative Extension Service on Griffing Avenue, Riverhead, Mr. Damiani will dispel some common misconceptions about species thought to migrate, but that live here year-round.

He will also talk about "irruptive" species, such as the snowy owl and the northern shrike.

Southold Farm

The next morning, participants will put theory into practice by a hike on the 100-acre Bayside Farm in Southold. Refreshments will be served. The program costs $20, and registration and advance payment are required. Those interested have been asked to call the Cornell Marine Center at 3690 Cedar Beach Road, Southold.

The Long Island Greenbelt Trail Conference has three hikes scheduled this week, two on Saturday, and one on Sunday. Information is available from the conference's headquarters in Central Islip. R.D.

As of April 1, New York State, bowing to a 1994 Supreme Court decision, will begin collecting sales and excise taxes on cigarettes and gas sold on Indian reservations.

Three stores on the Shinnecock Reservation in Southampton will be affected: the Shinnecock Smoke Shop, the Shinnecock Indian Outpost, and the Thunderbird Coffee Shop. All sell tax-free cigarettes to the general public.

Cigarettes sold to those who live on the reservation will not be taxed.

The Shinnecocks are negotiating with the state under the umbrella of the First Nations Business League, which also includes the Unkechaug tribe and parts of the Seneca, Mohawk, and Oneida tribes, to find a way around the ruling.

No Progress

So far, however, according to state officials, in 12 meetings, conducted via conference calls and in person, they have made almost no progress, though certain upstate tribes, negotiating separately, seem near an agreement.

Tom Crippen, manager of the Shinnecock Indian Outpost, contradicted the state's claim in a press release that the talks had "broken down" and that the Indians had not made "goaod faith efforts." He noted that the Indians had had to reschedule meetings becuase of the death of an Indian leader and conflicting traditional Midwinter Meetings.

He said another meeting with the state, arranged before the State Department of Taxation and Finance announced it would proceed with collection, is set for collection.

The state "needs to provide a level playing field for the businesses off the reservations," said Michael McKeon, Governor Pataki's press secretary.

Wholesalers who supply the Indian merchants, not the merchants themselves, will be responsible for the collection and submission of taxes to the state. The retailers will, however, be required to keep a record of all sales to reservation residents.

If reservations run out of tax-free cigarettes, they can sell taxable cigarettes to tribe members and apply for refunds on the tax paid, said Marvin Nailor, Director of Commerce.

The state collects some 56 cents sales tax and 64 cents in excise tax per pack of cigarettes. Lost income from the failure to collect these taxes has been estimated as high as $300 million a year.