Dan's Papers - October 10, 2008 - East Hampton Rules

After all the sturm und drang of the summer, with the police raids on all the stores, Ruth Kalb, of the Vered Gallery, being hauled off in handcuffs for giving away wine at her gallery opening, Dylan Lauren being told she could not give away snow cones and all the other things, everybody felt it would be a good idea for village officials and the police to get together with a bunch of the store owners to sort things out.

The discussion about all this took place at a breakfast meeting at the Palm Restaurant on Main Street at 8:30 a.m. on a Tuesday. Present were about 20 downtown merchants, along with Marina Van and Larry Cantwell, who is the village manager. (In East Hampton Village, the village manager is sort of like the prime minister, while Paul Rickenbacker, the mayor, is sort of like the king.)

Cantwell started things off by saying that he wanted these merchants to have as much success with their businesses as they could, but that rules were rules and many of them had been created so the village could stay as beautiful as it is, since it had been once selected as America's most beautiful village and, for example, putting a balloon out on the sign out front to let people know there was something special going on inside, which the Eileen Fisher Clothing Store on Newtown Lane wanted to put up, was just not going to be acceptable.

"Once you have one balloon," he said, "pretty soon you have hundreds of balloons everywhere and they couldn't have that, so there is a rule against that."

In the back, a few people strained to look out the window of the Palm to see if there was a balloon on their sign, since it was special they were having their meeting there. There wasn't.

He talked about snow cones. And he talked about popcorn, which reminded people of the popcorn popper that was shut down at Dylan's Candy Bar and the SnoCone machine that was shut down at the Ralph Lauren Rugby Store, and he said that the rule of thumb was that if it required any preparation for the food, it was illegal. So you could give out things, such as free cider or crackers or cheese, but you couldn't be making hamburgers or whomping up a free omelet for example.

The distinction, apparently, was that you could serve cheese and crackers separately, for example, which is what he already noted, but if you actually spread the cheese on the crackers to make it crackers and cheese, then the police would have every right to swoop in to shut the joint down.

People in the audience nodded that they understood. Some of them said they were glad they were all on the same page here. Free kernels of corn in a bag that you could take home and pop later were fine. Bags of popcorn store bought were fine. Just no popper, or at least no popper in the store. You might consider having a popper out back in your car with an extension cord powering it, and you could bring in the results of that to give away, but, well, you get the idea.

The matter of Ruth Kalb and the Vered Gallery were talked about. Because of all the people pushing the envelope about what you could or couldn't do, they had decided to enforce an ordinance that was never before enforced, actually two ordinances which said that if you wanted to serve wine and cheese at a gallery opening, you'd need a one night liquor license that cost $36, and you'd need a public gathering permit that cost $50, all payable to the village, so that was a good thing and for those that had galleries there at the meeting, he was just reminding them. As far as Ms. Kalb was concerned, the trouble started when she refused to stop serving the wine when asked by police officers to do so and said instead they should come back later when the party was over - it was packed to the rafters with people - and they could talk about it but she was just too busy just at that time. Thus, the handcuffs.

More discussion ensued about whether you could put a folding chair on your property. The matter came up as a question from Terry Ross, of the Spanierman Gallery on Newtown Lane, who wanted to know if it would be all right if, at an art gallery opening with all the proper permits and all, could he put folding chairs out front with maybe a small table so people could sit and rest while the event was going on. Larry asked if it was on property he owned and Terry said it was and then Larry said it would be okay, "so long as it doesn't block the flow of traffic on the sidewalk."

Other questions came up about flowers in pots out front - the anwer was no - and about having music playing - the answer was yes, but only if it was a recording.

For some reason at this point, the meeting deteriorated into a discussion about dog poop. People who have dogs are allowed to walk them in the village even without a leash, so long as they clean up the dog poop. Yet, occasionally, they forget to do so, and certainly that was a matter for law enforcement, but a suggestion that was made that perhaps there be plastic bag dispensers on the corners, perhaps near the walk/don't walk buttons on the lampposts, was not well received by those in attendance - dog poop dispensers in a seventeenth century colonial village? - but Mr. Cantwell politely said he would take it under advisement.

There was then a discussion about leash laws for dogs and that there weren't any in the village. At the present time, there are laws which say someone with a dog needs to have it "under his control" at all times, which meant that if you called the dog he would have to come. And if that meant it had to be reminded by a leash, so be it. (Not having a leash but getting the dog to come by voice command is akin to having a wireless computer printer. Or a TV remote. Come. Sit. Fetch. See? No leash.)

There is a law, by the way, that says that dogs that are put into the back of pickup trucks by local bonackers - a thing that seems to be something that both the bonackers and the dogs, invariably black labs or golden retrievers - like. It was apparently passed at a time when some of the other locals, seeing the dogs jumping around happily back there while the bonackers drove them around, worried that they might fall out going around a turn, which hadn't happened yet but then, by god it certainly could, and so after that you had to have a leash attached to keep the dog in, which could be why you don't see such things very much anymore.

The meeting adjourned after Cantwell suggested that if somebody wanted to propose a leash law he would surely take a look at it. Mrs. Van, meanwhile, said she'd like to talk to the mayor about having some sort of Fourth of July exception to the rules about balloons and bunting, such as the exception we have for the week or two before Christmas, when all the stores are festooned with holiday ornaments and garlands.

As people were leaving, two people began to talk about a dog law that recently passed in Tel Aviv. All the dogs in that city have to have licenses, of course. But now one of them said they had heard that when you get the license you have to give a DNA sample of the dog to the city. And they keep that on file.

Whenever anybody steps on dog poop and wants to do something about it, the police can match up the DNA and they know whom to fine. It could work.