Weekend Was Calmer

Bars keep a lid on it, while residential complaints rise

Jun. 2, 2016

T.E. McMorrow

Calls for police assistance over the Memorial Day weekend were up from last year’s, although Chief Michael Sarlo of the East Hampton Town Police Department said the overall tenor and tone in the streets was calmer.

This year, there were 401 calls listed in the police event log between 8 a.m. Friday, May 27, and 8 a.m. Tuesday, May 31. During the same holiday window last year, May 22 to May 26, there were 360 such calls. The number of noise complaints in residential neighborhoods was 35, about twice what it was in 2015, accounting for at least some of the increase.

The leading residential offender, judging by the call log, was in Amagansett, at 68 Fresh Pond Road, where police were sent three times over the weekend, with a fourth visit on the same street listed as 70 Fresh Pond Road.

Noise complaints against businesses, in contrast, dropped significantly this year. There were only three of them in the entire town over the holiday weekend, according to the log, with two of the three, against Sole East in Montauk, coming on Saturday afternoon.

Many of the bars that were once hot spots for code enforcement have changed management teams, among them Sloppy Tuna in downtown Montauk; Harbor, a nightclub in the dock area that has been converted into a restaurant called Gray Lady, and Ciao by the Beach, now called Arbor, located by the Montauk railroad station. Jeff Capri, the general manager of Sloppy Tuna, said Saturday that the bar is now closing earlier, at about 1:30 or 2 a.m. In the past, it shut down at 3 or later, after which patrons would stream over to the Memory Motel or the Point on Main Street. Last year, police responded to several noise complaints concerning Sloppy Tuna; there were none last weekend.

The bar-hopping scene in downtown Montauk appeared quieter as well. “It was a calmer atmosphere,” Chief Sarlo said. He himself spent a good amount of time in the easternmost hamlet over the three days and said that the bar-hoppers were “not hooting and hollering, just going to the next place.”

The chief believes that bars are keeping a careful watch now on their patrons. “They feel the weight of needing to bear responsibility themselves, not allowing over-capacity or serving someone too much,” he said. He singled out the Point, where, he said, management is making sure that customers causing problems are not let back in.

This can sometimes lead to arrests outside the bar. Such was the case, police said, with Shane A. McGovern, 24, of Huntington, who had been ejected from the Point. After police told him he was “not allowed into the establishment,” he reportedly tried to get back in past an officer, and spit on him. Police said he then refused to be handcuffed, leading to a charge of resisting arrest, a misdemeanor, as well as harassment and disorderly conduct, violations.

Townwide, arrests were up slightly this year, from 19 in 2015 to 21, but that number is skewed by the fact that 5 of the 21 involved warrants. Arrests on drunken driving charges were down this year, to five, from nine last year.

One concern, said Chief Sarlo, was a sharp rise in the number of vehicular accidents across the town. He said there were some 27 this year, as opposed to 15 in 2014.

Going forward, the chief said, an important concern is the taxi industry. He said there are simply too many cars, companies, and drivers flooding the town, particularly in Montauk. Most of the drivers are hard-working people trying to make a living, he said, “although there are one or two bad apples out there.” In the big picture, however, the pressure to make money, to book that extra fare or two, has some drivers making illegal U-turns or stopping in the middle of the road to discharge or pick up passengers.

Officers will be cracking down on cabbies who park their vehicles, particularly in places designated as taxi stands, and then walk into crowds outside hot night spots, fishing for high-paying fares. The chief said the department intends to obtain contact information from the town clerk’s office and then set up meetings with owners of the many companies operating here this summer, to help bring their drivers into compliance.

Emergency medical personnel, meanwhile, had a busy weekend, responding to 57 calls between Friday and Monday, according to East Hampton Village Police Chief Gerard Larsen, who oversees the dispatching for the five agencies. The East Hampton Village Ambulance Association, which answers calls in the village, Northwest Woods, and areas of Wainscott, answered 21 calls, 12 on Sunday alone. The Montauk Fire Department answered the second most number of E.M.S. calls with 18, 9 of them Sunday.

All in all, Chief Sarlo said, it was a good start to the season. “It’s summer. It’s the beach. There’s going to be a party,” he said, but added, “We’re headed in the right direction.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story that appeared online and in print incorrectly stated the name of the business that received noise complaints over the weekend. It was not Ruschmeyer's but Sole East.