The Mast-Head: It Wasn’t Okay
Saturday morning, 10:32 a.m. to be precise, might be a good time to stop at the Montauk Beer and Soda store to pick up a water and orange drink for a thirsty kid. Or so I thought.
Montauk has changed a lot since the old days; we all know this. Still, I was not in any way prepared for just how busy it was this past Saturday when I rolled in thinking I could take the kids to the ocean beach.
The Kirk Park free lot was full, with drivers circling in vain looking for a spot. That should have been the first clue. Eastbound traffic was backed up and creeping when I turned right onto South Elmwood, hoping for a quick stop on the way to Ditch Plain. Ellis wanted something cold to drink. How bad could it be?
The place was hopping, more power to its owners, but wow. Meaty 20-somethings stood in the aisles trying to figure out what supplies to lay on for the day’s drinking — ice, 12-packs of Bud Light, that kind of thing. Much looking at cellphones and texting and discussion were involved.
Transactions at the front of the long line to the counter seemed to be complicated, too, involving who was going to pay for what. Two tall young men standing next to us waiting to pay looked and smelled like their partying from the night before hadn’t really ended.
Eventually we got our drinks and chips and continued east. By then, close to 11 a.m., it was too late to find a parking space at the beach. We passed the main lot at Ditch, then East Deck, and peeked in at Dirt Lot. Not a chance. We turned around and drove to Georgica all the way up in East Hampton, where parking was plentiful and we had a good remainder of the day on the beach. Still, I was left with a bad feeling.
Why, I thought, should Montauk, once so open and laid back, now be completely overrun? Does the fact that some people are making piles of money justify the fact that an Amagansett family cannot go there unless they get out of the house by 9 on a weekend morning?
Yes, it might have been wishful thinking on my part to assume that we could have accomplished this on a Saturday in Montauk, but that does not make it okay. Indian Wells in Amagansett has been residents-only for a long time. It’s time something similar was tried out east.