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Food Trucks on the Menu?

Food trucks are the norm at many town beaches, including this one at Indian Wells Beach.
Food trucks are the norm at many town beaches, including this one at Indian Wells Beach.
Durell Godfrey
By
Christopher Walsh

For the first time ever, beachgoers at Two Mile Hollow and Georgica might have the chance to grab a hot dog, an ice cream bar, or a drink from food trucks in the parking lots there.

The East Hampton Village Board is considering allowing vendors to sell food and beverages in the parking areas at the two beaches between March 16 and Dec. 1. A hearing on the change was held on Friday and was left open for two weeks to solicit written comments from the public.

When Ann Roberts, a village resident, asked the board Friday to explain the reason for the proposal, Barbara Borsack, the deputy mayor, said the idea was hers. “We were trying to think of ways to maximize the use of Two Mile Hollow,” she said, adding that it, and its large parking lot, are lightly used. “Perhaps if there was food available, like at Main Beach, it might be more used by families,” she said. The Chowder Bowl snack bar serves food and drinks at the Main Beach Pavilion.

“It’s an idea we’re exploring,” Ms. Borsack said. “It’s not necessarily going to happen: there are a lot of things we have to talk about, but to go to the next step we have to do this.”

Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. said that one email opposing the proposed amendment, from Susan Gilmer of East Hampton, had been received, along with another seconding Ms. Gilmer’s opposition. “It’s a work in progress,” the mayor said. “There is a lot of information we’d like to receive from the public and other interested parties.”

In her email, Ms. Gilmer expressed concern about further intensification of the beaches’ use, including traffic on beach access roads and “a great increase in trash at the beaches, which is already an issue for the village.” Though village officials say they have received no complaints about litter on the beaches, some members of the town trustees, along with Dell Cullum, a wildlife photographer and president of the East Hampton Group for Wildlife, have called for the garbage receptacles to be moved from the sand to the parking lots, feeling that their placement on the beaches results in more litter dispersed over a wider area.

Village officials had received no other correspondence about the beach vending proposal as of Monday afternoon.

In other news from the meeting, the board approved the expenditure of $191,000 for paving improvements and asphalt repair projects on Amy’s Lane, Pleasant Lane, Apaquogue Road, Fredericka Lane, and Pudding Hill Lane. The board also voted to accept the $53,500 proposal from DJJ Technologies of Islandia to upgrade the telephone system at the Emergency Services Building.

The board will hold two public hearings at its meeting on Sept. 18. One is to consider a proposed amendment to the village’s zoning code that would prohibit detached residential garages in front yards. The other would require that all trash receptacles be covered at night “with covers that are sufficiently secure to prevent their contents from blowing out of the receptacle.”

 

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