Dan's Papers - June 6, 2008

Vered Gallery holds its bi-weekly art gallery opening and about 300 people attend, expecting to be served wine, champagne and cheese. Five police cars and nine officers show up, and they put Vered in handcuffs and haul her away while the crowd cries out, "Leave Vered alone, leave Vered alone!" and hold up cell phone cameras to record the scene for - who? The police?

The charges? Violation of Federal Liquor Authority Ordinance 100.1, which says that alcohol may not be either sold or served in a commercial establishment without a license, and violation of local East Hampton Village Code 71-2, which says you can't have a public assemblage of more than 50 people without a permit.

Both of these infractions are misdemeanors. How could this have spun so far out of control?

The answer, it turns out, lies in who Vered is, and who the East Hampton Village Police are.

The police, particularly in the summertime and particularly over Memorial Day weekend, have one of the hardest jobs imaginable. Amidst wealthy, entitled motorists who drive hundred-thousand-dollar cars within inches of one another, amidst gawking tourists who stumble awkwardly over the curbs as they look up at the colonial architecture of this 350-year-old town, amidst harried merchants who have struggled through 14-hour workdays and amidst local workmen, fishermen, surfers, stockbrokers, lawyers, computer experts, models, billionaires and trophy-wife shoppers, they have to keep it all moving, and people obeying the law, with a light hand (if that is at all possible). In the summertime, it stretches the force, and so they are supplemented with young police interns who often can be seen directing traffic and writing parking summonses downtown.

Then there is Vered. Born and raised in Israel, she joined the Israeli Army and became a sergeant, started a family and then moved, for some reason I cannot fathom, to be in the hurly-burly of East Hampton, where she has her gallery, and Sag Harbor, where she lives with her partner, Janet Lehr. The gallery is in a courtyard behind Starbucks, less than 100 steps from the four corners marking the center of town.

Vered is a beautiful, fashionable woman who, now in her early 60s, has been here for 30 years. Everybody knows her. And not everybody likes her. But I do. She can be willful, elegant, funny, loud and imperious, yet on some occasions, gentle. She seems to have been made to run a very high end art gallery for the rich. But more important, to me anyway, is that underneath it all she has a good heart. While above it all, what you see is what you get. She does not suffer fools lightly.

Once, while sitting in the gallery with her during a quiet interlude, she saw something out of the corner of her eye and immediately raised her voice.

"I'm sorry, sir," she said. A very finely tailored man with an associate had just crossed the threshold of the gallery. "We do not allow food in here." He was eating an ice cream cone. "Just give that to your chauffeur or whoever, and have him wait with it outside for you."

Now let us go to the events of the evening of Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. The show was a collection of about 50 photographs, many of them quite small but framed very large, taken by the celebrated photographer Steven Klein - who has photographed people such as Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt and Madonna. That this enormous crowd of people came was a testament to the popularity of Vered, and her choice of whom she chooses to display. The champagne is flowing, and the hors d'oeuvres are being picked at at a side table.

What Vered does not know is that earlier this spring, an officer from the State Liquor Authority came and gave a lecture to the East Hampton Village Police about the importance of enforcing all the liquor laws fairly and firmly. Drunkenness on the street can be a serious thing. At one point he spoke about the laws involving the serving of liquor in commercial locations. One-day licenses were available for $35 an event. They could be for special sales at clothing stores, or openings at art galleries. It really didn't matter. The police needed to know at all times where and when liquor was being consumed in public places. One certainly did not want the hordes of people out here for Memorial Day walking into one store after another and getting free alcoholic beverages.

Another thing that Vered does not know is that the laws have changed since she first began doing her bi-weekly gallery openings. And why should she? If the law changes, somebody would tell her.

The law, Alcoholic Beverage Control Ordinance 100.1, was passed in 1996.

So into this scene of people milling around and admiring and purchasing the art come two young police officers, who have been patrolling the village on bicycles, seeing, among many other things, that those merchants serving alcohol have their permits in order. They come in, in full uniform. They are ushered over to the owner of the gallery. And they talk to her.

The day after Vered was hauled away in handcuffs, with her face on the front page of the New York Daily News, in the Post, in Newsday (and in Dan's Papers), I sat with her and she described to me, calmly, in her heavy Israeli accent, just what happened next.

"They told me that they wanted to see the permit I had to serve alcohol. I said, 'What permit?' They said I need a permit and if I don't have one, then I would get a summons. And also I would have to, right now, shut down the champagne.

"I told them I would not shut down the champagne table. They said I have to.

"I told them, 'Sonny, I've been serving wine and cheese at my art openings since before you were born. If it's not all right, I'll take care of it. But I have a party going on, so please come back later. Bring your chief. Or see me later in the week. I'm here.'

"Then they said they would shut down the party. I said, 'Look, this is a private gallery, and I didn't invite you, so please leave.'

At this point, apparently, the police returned to headquarters and told those in charge that Vered was defiant and would not cooperate, and the gallery goers there were siding with her. Did the police then discuss the possibility of an impending riot breaking out, should they return with the firm intent of arresting Vered for her defiance? Was there discussion that this might escalate into a pitched battle with 300 well-dressed and very angry cell-phone-toting rich people with champagne glasses, and that they needed to go there prepared? Water cannons, perhaps? The thought does boggle the mind.

Vered spent two hours in the police station, handcuffed. Her lawyer came and got her out. She is quite adamant that she will continue to serve wine and cheese at her next gallery opening, which is before her June 17 court date, and if they come to arrest her again, then so be it. (On the other hand, I do believe that she will buy a $36 permit ahead of time.)

The wording of the permit says that such permits can be denied if the applicant "is not known to be of reputable character," but I would be very surprised if the police higher-ups interpret it that way.

I think they might very well be surprised at their own behavior in this matter. It had come to this. But it does not take nine police officers to subdue a woman in her 60s, even one who goes to the gym every day to work out.

The police came back to the gallery after they hauled Vered off, and they took not only the alcohol on the table, but the alcohol in storage, and even Vered's private stock in a closet.

It is also true that this was only part of an organized police activity on Saturday night throughout the village. A nearby gallery was also raided, and, after the young female manager burst into tears, the alcohol was confiscated there, too. Two clothing stores were also visited by the police - John Varvatos, which was having a special show and serving alcohol without a license (they were ticketed), and Blue and Cream, which was having a sale, but where there was no alcohol even though the police searched.

What the hell is going on here, anyway?

"All these men they come in here with their big muscles," Vered said. "What next? Are they going to come to my house?"

The whole episode brought millions and millions of dollars of free publicity to Vered and her gallery. Meanwhile, the police look bad. It would be a class act if, on June 17, the police apologized for the incident coming to be what it was. Then the judge could fine her.