Montauk Pioneer - May 29, 2009 - A Neon Shamrock Dilemma

For 25 years, green neon lights, in the shape of shamrocks, have glowed 24 hours a day from the windows of O'Murphy's Pub, located in a historic Carl Fisher building in Montauk's downtown plaza.

Along the way, one of these lights burned out, but the three that remain, measuring about a foot high, are causing a war with the neighbors, who claim "the shamrocks keep us up at night."

Now O'Murphy's Pub owners Chet and Jan Kordasz, who have had the business five years, have been told to shut off the shamrocks by the East Hampton Town Ordinance Enforcement.

The town banned neon lights for new businesses in 1989, but up until now, they have grandfathered in the older businesses, according to the Ordinance Enforcement department.

"But after neighbors complained about a month ago, they told us to turn off our shamrocks at 10 p.m., and now they're telling us to shut them off at 7:30 p.m., because someone else complained," said Chet Kordasz. "We're a bar and restaurant-if the shamrocks are turned off, people will think we're closed. This has turned into a nightmare and is hurting our business."

He said his business is open from 12 noon until midnight weekdays, and until 2 a.m. on weekends, and that "no one has ever complained about the shamrocks," which have stayed on 24 hours a day since this place first opened."

Nick D'Agostino and his girlfriend, Grace DeLeo, who bought a ground-floor condominium across the street at The Towers, about three years ago, filed an ordinance with the town about a month ago.

"These lights shine in our window, and make a green hue across the walls, and we can't sleep," said DeLeo. "We're only asking that they be shut off around 10 p.m, and not be left on all night when the pub is closed."

She said they already have drapes over their 20-foot windows, which face Montauk's busy downtown business plaza, but that the lights shine in the top of the arched window to their 20-foot sleeping loft.

Nick D'Agostino said it wasn't so bad until all the high shrubbery around his condo was torn down last October, to do construction work on the building, leaving his windows exposed to lights and noise.

"I bought this place with total privacy from the trees and bushes, and I couldn't see anything in town, but now it's like living in a fishbowl," he said. "They mowed down all the high green shrubs that covered our windows and screened out the lights and noise."

But Chet Kordasz said it's not his fault that things have changed across the street, and that the couple has been complaining off and on for over a year. "They live in one of Montauk's busiest downtown circles, with car lights and street lights, so what's so bad about a shamrock?" he said.

Former owner Nancy Neff, who put up the shamrock lights in 1984, said, "I left these low-voltage lights on all the time because they were part of our Irish identity. In all this time, no one ever complained about them."

Dominic Schirrippa, head of the East Hampton Ordinance Department, said perhaps if O'Murphy's can prove they are one of the few old buildings that are grandfathered in, they may not have to turn off their lights.

"We're investigating this situation now," he said. "We're trying to take everyone's needs into consideration, and make everybody happy."