Fourteen East Hampton Town residents who were issued summonses for trespassing during a protest at what is popularly known as Truck Beach on Napeague last October had their case summarily dismissed in Southampton Town Justice Court in Hampton Bays on Tuesday, in what their attorney called a victory for all residents of the town.
Triumphant after the dismissals, Dan Rodgers, the attorney, announced the “Stuart Vorpahl Sunday Afternoon Truck Beach Fishing Clinic,” named for the late bayman, town trustee, and fierce defender of public access rights, which he said would be held at the beach beginning in the spring. Mr. Vorpahl’s wife and daughter attended Tuesday’s hearing.
Daniel Lester, Paul Lester, James Bennett, Nat Miller, Edward McClosky, Brian Pardini, Mark Hallock, Donal Fingleton, Bernard Cornick, Greg Monaco, Gregory Barletta, Jeffrey Keiger, and Adam Mamay exited Justice Court en masse following the dismissal of charges by Justice Gary Weber. A trespassing charge against Andrew Rigby, who was not present, was also dismissed.
“The reason why the charges are being dismissed is because the prosecutor has no case,” Mr. Rodgers told his clients. “And that’s simply because the homeowners have refused to cooperate.” None had filed a complaint, he said.
The 14 were among a larger group of residents who drove a caravan of trucks and a dory across the stretch of beach in October 2021, as they had done months earlier, to protest a New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division panel’s February 2021 ruling that upland property owners associations’ chains of title to their respective properties extend to the mean high-water mark of the ocean, and that residents had no inherent right to drive or park vehicles there.
East Hampton Town Justices Lisa Rana and Steven Tekulsky had recused themselves without disclosing a reason for recusal, so the cases were transferred to the nearest adjoining jurisdiction.
Each hearing was brief and appeared to be little more than a formality, as no property owner had come forward to file a complaint against those charged by Marine Patrol officers with trespassing. Mr. Rodgers had predicted that outcome. “The only method to enforce a private property right is to charge a person with trespass,” he told The Star earlier this month. “The homeowners have made clear, after a year, they will not do so. The reason: They are afraid a local court will rule that 28,000 residents have a legal right to be on their beach to engage in any fishing activity, including with trucks, because they can’t point to anything where it says ‘no trucks.’ ”
Kenneth Silverman, a spokesman for one of the property owners associations, did not reply to an email seeing comment.
Tuesday’s action was the latest in a saga dating to 2009, when several property owners’ associations, citing what they called dangerous conditions due to scores of trucks driving and parking on the beach and people and dogs relieving themselves on the beach and in the dunes, first asserted their claim to the 4,000-foot stretch of beach in parallel lawsuits. To support their claim of ownership to the mean high-water mark, they cited an 1882 deed in which the trustees, who own and manage many of the town’s beaches on behalf of the public, conveyed some 1,000 acres on Napeague to Arthur Benson.
A 2016 trial was determined in favor of the town and trustees, with a State Supreme Court justice noting that the 1882 deed clearly reserved some rights to East Hampton residents “and, arguably, the allowances for some public use.” That decision was reversed by a panel of four Appellate Division judges in February 2021, which held in part that the reservation in the Benson deed “is in the nature of an easement allowing the public to use the homeowners associations’ portion of the beach only for fishing and fishing-related purposes.” A June 2021 injunction reiterated the Appellate Division panel’s affirmation.
On June 30 of this year, State Supreme Court Justice Paul J. Baisley Jr. ordered that more than 6,000 town beach-driving permits be revoked, holding the town and trustees in contempt and levying a nearly $240,000 fine for violating the 2021 court decision that the shoreline was privately owned.
Baymen staged acts of civil disobedience in June and October 2021. In the latter action, Marine Patrol officers cited 14 participants for trespassing, following a discussion between Mr. Rodgers and Ed Michels, then the town’s chief harbormaster.
“This is a definite win for us,” Mr. Rodgers said outside the courthouse on Tuesday, “because after today we’re going back to the beach.” The property owners, he said, “were willing to spend millions of dollars to get this result. But at the end of the day, we don’t care who owns the beach. We’ve never cared who owns the beach. We have the reservation, and that is a legal property right that belongs not just to baymen, not just to recreational fishermen, it belongs to 28,000 people who live in the Town of East Hampton.”
He had distributed a laminated card to his clients. On one side it reads “I declare: I am a resident of the Town of East Hampton” and “I am presently engaged in fishing related activity.” On the other side is a brief explanation of the Benson deed’s reservation permitting the public’s right to access the beach “for fishing and fishing related purposes.”
“If anybody bothers you on the beach, whether it be a homeowner, Marine Patrol officer, police officer, you hand them that card,” he told them. “Exercise your rights under that reservation. It belongs to you.”
