More Acrimony in Sloppy Split

Robert Anderson, an employee of the Sloppy Tuna bar in Montauk, outside East Hampton Town Justice Court on Monday, where he was fined $7,500 to settle noise violation charges.

T.E. McMorrow

Apr. 7, 2016

T.E. McMorrow

If the Sloppy Tuna in downtown Montauk opens this season, it will do so without the man who was its head of security for the past five years. “I will be back in Montauk this season, but not there,” Robert Anderson said outside East Hampton Town Justice Court on Monday after pleading guilty to 4 of the 12 noise violations he had been written up for between 2014 and 2015.

East Hampton Town Justice Steven Tekulsky fined Mr. Anderson a total of $7,500. “I’m not blaming anybody,” Mr. Anderson said of his former bosses, Drew Doscher and Michael Meyer, who are tangled in counter lawsuits. Mr. Anderson said he was in negotiations with another high-profile Montauk nightclub.

Meanwhile, the court-appointed receiver for Sloppy Tuna, Charles C. Russo, vowed last week in letters to the two warring partners that the club and bar will open on time and have a successful season.

The letter came in response to a March 29 Facebook post by Mr. Doscher on the Sloppy Tuna Facebook page informing the “Sloppy nation” that the hot spot as they know it “will not be opening at the same location in Montauk this summer.” Mr. Doscher railed against an order by New York State Supreme Court Justice Jerry Garguilo that would place the club under temporary control of Mr. Russo.

In his letter to the attorneys the next day, Mr. Russo demanded that Mr. Doscher turn over by Friday the more than $1 million the business has in a Chase Bank account to a receivership account Mr. Russo has created at Bridgehampton National Bank. He claimed that Mr. Doscher’s Facebook posting was in direct violation of the court order, which stipulated that Mr. Doscher is “restrained from interfering in any way” with the receiver’s operation of the business.

Mr. Russo, who also filed the letter with the clerk for Justice Garguilo, demanded that Mr. Doscher remove the posting and substitute a retraction instead. He also asked that Mr. Doscher be instructed to contact all news outlets to alert them to the retraction.

Mr. Russo warned that if Mr. Doscher does not comply with his demands, he risks facing criminal charges of contempt of court.

The warring parties were due back in court yesterday.