After closing the second round of the well-attended hearing on legislation designed to limit the hours of eating and drinking establishments in the village historic district, the East Hampton Village Board unanimously passed the law at its meeting Friday.
“Eleven o’clock, doors closed,” said Mayor Jerry Larsen.
While the private membership club Zero Bond wasn’t explicitly mentioned, the legislation was drafted after rumors began percolating weeks ago that the club was close to signing a long-term lease with the Hedges Inn on James Lane. “It’s not about Zero Bond. Village residents don’t want late night restaurants,” said Marcos Baladron, the village administrator. “Let’s face it, Zero Bond is really a nightclub. The owner, Scott Sartiano, was trying to make some distinction, at a February meeting, in regard to the differences between a late-night social club and a nightclub. But if it looks like a duck and walks like a duck, it’s a duck, and there’s no ducks allowed here.”
According to Mr. Baladron, discussions between Zero Bond and the Hedges had begun months prior, in October of 2023, even though the inn was never formally listed for lease or sale.
The Hedges is already bound under a 1981 zoning board of appeals determination to close its doors at 10 p.m. However, prior to the legislation, other historic district inns were unrestricted. The legislation makes it perhaps unpalatable for the crowd courted by Zero Bond to turn any of the historic inns into a late-night scene.
Since mid-April, the board has received over 30 letters supporting the legislation, and many more residents spoke out at the hearing. No resident has spoken in support of allowing historic district businesses to operate past 11 p.m.
“We are big fans of quiet, dark nights in our residential neighborhood in the historic heart of East Hampton Village,” Cynthia Gowen Crawford wrote in a letter to the board. “It’s disturbing when a self-interested, aggressive group comes to town with an agenda and doesn’t care about neighbors or community or local regulations or restrictions.”
At the hearing Friday, Kenneth Lipper, a neighbor, quoted from a May 2 Vanity Fair article in which Mr. Sartiano said Zero Bond took him back to the ‘90s, “when people could do whatever they want.” “That is what John Cumming is proposing to bring to the village,” Mr. Lipper told the board. “I applaud you for ameliorating the effects.”
Mr. Baladron said that while the inn is owned by Mr. Cumming, Patrick Egbert, a director at Cumming Capital Management, has been acting as a go-between for Mr. Cumming in negotiations. Mayor Larsen met with Mr. Egbert once and resolved not to meet with him again.
“I want to meet with someone with skin in the game,” the mayor said. “Either John is not getting the message, or he doesn’t care. He listens to what we’re saying but then we got Patrick doing the opposite. So, either Patrick is running the corporation and John has no idea what’s going on, or John tells me one thing and Patrick does what he wants. Either way it’s not a good relationship. They’re making a big mistake by leasing it to Zero Bond.”
Mr. Cumming responded on Thursday, six days after the legislation was passed, saying, “The Hedges Inn is an iconic property in an iconic place, and one that has been a part of my family since the late 1970s. I share this as a testament to my deep feelings and dedication about this property, as well as the Village of East Hampton. I am honored to have been the steward of this historical property for as long as I have. The future of the Hedges Inn is an important and sensitive topic to everyone involved — including Mayor Larsen, my family, and all of the Village’s residents. We are working diligently to get the Hedges open as quickly as possible. I am confident that the next 40-plus years of this iconic inn will be as bright as its past.”
Mayor Larsen also said he had heard rumors that Zero Bond may try to open a restaurant in the location, modeled after Sartiano’s, Mr. Sartiano’s Italian eatery in Manhattan. “Neighbors are going to see right through that,” the mayor said.
“The historic inns are under threat,” Robert Burch, another neighbor, said at the hearing on Friday. “Zero Bond at the Hedges, Soho Club at the Maidstone Hotel. After that, exclusive members-only restaurants that double as nightclubs will take over and we won’t have any historic inns anymore. We’ll have a series of private members-clubs-slash-nightclubs in a historic district within a residential district, which would be a disaster. They would not be open to the public, they’d be open to celebrities and everything that brings; their entourages, the hangers-on, fleets of black Suburbans and Escalades, and crowds of paparazzi.”
The lawyers in the room had a different take. Two spoke at the hearing against the legislation. Joan McGivern, speaking for the Hedges Inn, argued that the New York State Liquor Authority laws pre-empt all local regulations for businesses that sell alcohol, and that any attempt by the village to regulate them is illegal.
Martha Reichert, speaking for the Huntting Inn, built in 1699, which is attempting to add a swimming pool and spa, said, “It’s unclear to me if the kitchen staff can clean. Can they throw out their garbage? When service is no longer supposed to be taking place, does that also preclude the restaurant staff from cleaning up?”
“Stores and businesses operate every day, and they have an opening time and a closing time,” Mayor Larsen said in a phone call. “Their employees arrive before opening and stay after closing. For her to stand up there and say that is absolutely ridiculous.”
“In my own opinion, and not in my capacity as counsel for Zero Bond, these types of actions should be done by the zoning board of appeals, not through legislation which seems to be targeted at one business but has a potential detrimental effect to all of our historical inns and the very important historical, yet partial commercial core of our beautiful Village,” Adam Miller, founder of the Adam Miller Group, a local real estate law firm, wrote in an email.
Zero Bond, he said, right now has no comment on the matter.
Last month, Jennifer Lilja, Mr. Baladron’s wife and the longtime general manager and executive chef of the inn, mutually agreed with its owner, Mr. Cumming, to leave. “It had something to do with this,” said Mr. Baladron, “but it was an amicable goodbye.” Ms. Lilja will stay on until five planned weddings are over in the fall.
According to Mr. Baladron, Zero Bond is not the only party interested in the Hedges; other prominent hoteliers with ties to East Hampton Village have contacted Mr. Cumming to purchase or lease the inn. However, Cumming Capital Management seems set on working with Zero Bond, despite all the issues being raised by neighbors and the larger community.
Another was Mark Butler, a former chairman of the East Hampton Village Planning Board, who, on Friday, said that as a lawyer he appreciated the debate on constitutionality and the intellectual challenge of crafting legislation that could withstand legal attacks. “But I’d also like to have people thinking about what makes this place special, what makes this historic district historic, and what that means to all of us," he said.
This story has been updated since it was first published to add comment from Mr. Cumming.
