The seemingly coincidental kerfuffles surrounding the Hedges and Huntting Inns in East Hampton Village point to a longer-standing problem: Old-line businesses that do not conform with current zoning laws are getting bigger and creating bigger problems. Montauk is a good example of how once-sleepy motels, for example, have gradually reshaped to become nighttime hotspots, with the accommodations an afterthought. Now, the heat has shifted to the village, where out-of-town corporate money is pushing a wave of changes.
The growth of pre-existing, nonconforming uses is a problem for many reasons: traffic, noise, and increased pressure on emergency services (and, hence, potential tax increases). Earlier town and village boards sought to minimize this kind of growth because of all of the above. Meanwhile, the benefits to the local community of nonconforming expansions are dubious, with out-of-town investors, supplies from elsewhere, and employment that is mostly seasonal.
Though East Hampton Town and the village have their own respective rules, the concept of so-called pre-existing, nonconforming buildings and how they are used is the same. Growth is prohibited, and there is a presumption that, over time, these inappropriate "uses," in zoning-speak, fade away. Of course, only in the rarest instance has the town or village actually upheld its own laws. Instead, applicants seeking permission to increase size or capacity turn to the variance process. Then, after long and sometimes contentious meetings, the applicants mostly get what they want.
The Huntting Inn's parent company says it needs a swimming pool and a hot tub. The Hedges Inn recently added onto a "service bar" and is set to be taken over by an exclusive private club (presumably without outdoor table service and loud music). Both are on land zoned residential and where such things are not otherwise tolerated. By calling itself a club, could the Hedges Inn evade the village's existing limit on the number of larger events, such as weddings, that have annoyed the neighborhood?
The Maidstone hotel is soon to be recast as La Dolce Vita under new ownership by the chairman and chief executive officer of Tilray Brands, a publicly traded $1-billion hospitality company that also owns the Montauk Brewing Company, SweetWater Brewing Company, and Breckenridge Distillery and operates a cannabis-production enterprise in Canada, and a partner. The Maidstone sent a lawyer to a recent village board meeting on the proposal to block dinner service after 10 p.m. in a historic district. It is worth paying attention to the fact that the village has no such protection planned for a north-of-the-highway site on Toilsome Lane slated for a brewery and restaurant that has rankled its potential neighbors. The de facto head of the town Democratic Committee, the attorney Christopher Kelley, was at the meeting to speak on behalf of the Hedges Inn, which, unsurprisingly, objected to the proposed 10 p.m. rule, even while arguing that it would not apply in its case, anyway.
It is frustrating that both the town and the village have failed time and again to apply their existing bans on nonconforming expansion. Variances have been too easily handed out after performative zoning board hearings. The legal profession knows by now how to package incremental growth in a way that, in the end, gets their clients most, if not all, of what they want. The town has been a little tougher than the village, not allowing buildings covered by this portion of the code to get larger, but that has only encouraged the businesses to move the party out onto the lawn.
Read the town code: "No use variance shall be granted by the Board of Appeals without a showing by the applicant that applicable zoning regulations and restrictions have caused unnecessary hardship." A desire for a pool, as at the Huntting Inn, is not a hardship — and trying to boost income and resale values for the new corporate owners isn't a hardship, either.
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Correction: This editorial has been edited to dissociate Tilray Brands from the Maidstone Hotel ownership. As reported elsewhere, Tilray Brand's chairman and chief executive officer, Irwin D. Simon, bought the hotel and restaurant in 2023 with Mayank Dwivedi, a Wall Street executive. A Tilray Brands representative said in an email, "Tilray Brands and its subsidiaries are in no way affiliated with the Maidstone hotel."