Call to Cool Capital One Bank Glare
Despite the East Hampton Village Design Review Board’s approval in August, and apparent compliance with the village code, lighting at the recently renovated Newtown Lane branch of Capital One Bank is being called excessive and hazardous.
Mary Busch, chairwoman of the Ladies Village Improvement Society’s landmarks committee, said the L.V.I.S. was “very concerned about the light” emanating from the bank’s automatic teller machines, which are behind a glass facade. The organization’s landmarks committee met on Monday, she said, and was to contact village enforcement officials. This followed a visit to the branch, at which Ms. Busch said an assistant branch manager said that, to bank officials’ knowledge, there was no code violation.
Ken Collum, a code enforcement officer and fire marshal, said on Tuesday that his department did not have the ability to measure the light emanating from a fixture. “We make sure that the plan has been implemented, and to the best of our ability we think it has been.” Yesterday he was awaiting a reply from the bank’s maintenance department for confirmation that code-compliant lighting had been installed. But, he said, “from what I’m hearing, it is technically in compliance.”
Susan Harder of Springs, the New York section leader of the International Dark Sky Association, said the lighting was not only excessive but a serious safety hazard. The lighting, she said, was “far above the professional recommendations for safe lighting.”
At the East Hampton Village Board’s March 18 meeting, Ms. Harder had asked that it “address the large blue and red cabinet” of A.T.M.s at the bank, calling them “clearly inappropriate here.” She said this week that she had written to the bank’s president detailing what she said were numerous problems with the lighting, and asked that the fluorescent lights behind the cabinets be turned off.
“It’s a safety issue, not to mention an aesthetic issue,” she said. “When you’ve got that much blue light in your face, it closes the pupil down. Your eyes get blown out, and always adjust to the highest light source. It makes night vision worse, not better.”
A representative of the branch had not returned a call seeking comment by press time yesterday.
On Tuesday, Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. acknowledged the concerns voiced by Ms. Harder and the L.V.I.S., saying, “the village is trying to do due diligence. It’s been brought to the attention of code enforcement. We’ll see if they are in compliance.”