On The Beach Blog

If this keeps up, the Greater Westhampton Chamber of Commerce's annual Halloween Parade and Main Street trick or treating, will soon out-strip the local Saint Patrick's Parade and orgy of Oirish behavior. More...

No, there was not another "armed robbery" on Westhampton Beach's Main Street last night!

This information has been verified, so before running with the "story" that gunmen invaded another downtown eatery, it's not so.

The truth is that a break-in was attempted but the location's alarm system worked as adver­tised, and the miscreant(s) were thwarted.

But perhaps now the Village Board will author­ize the additional police officer for which there is already a budget item.

Updated 10/30/2008 - 12:23 pm

Southampton Press Western Edition reporter Jessica DiNapoli and I had a brief en passant conversation recently about what she and I did, the conclusion of which was that as a blogger I had the freedom to "editorialize" and as a reporter, she didn't.

Someone... Ms. DiNapoli, her Editor Frank Cos­tanza or her predecessor, Caroline Simson1 who now oversees The Press' 27East.com on-line edition... seems to have disremembered the critical differences between straight re­portage and editorial commentary. More...

Updated 10/29/2008 8:25 pm

Prior to Southampton's "upgrade" to First Class Town status 38 years ago, the Town Justices of the Peace also served as the Town Board.

On January 1, 1972 the first Council­matic Town Board was seated, and a trio of Justices, Edwin Berkley, Mercator Kendrick and Paul Smith, Jr.... Republicans all, naturally... were installed solely to preside over the Town Court.

(Annual compensation: $12,500.) More...

A large and timely welcome to the blogosphere to Matthew Ray Robison.

Well, it's better than going out a window!

Judicial election campaigns are heavily regu­lat­ed by canon, so direct "attack advertising" is never seen. More...

It wasn't "heavily promoted," but Dune Road activist Jacqueline Sprotte tried networking an evening of support for recent crime victim Sandy Patterson. More...

I already have one sister-in-law, Andy, who lives on Marco Island.

It now seems I have another, and upon reflection, others may be surfacing as the weekend progresses. More...

Updated 10/24/2008 - 20:48 pm

While it doesn't quite rise to the level of the October 1975 covers of Newsweek and Time...

...each featuring Bruce Springsteen, it's prob­ably just coincidence that after months of con­tentiousness The Southampton Press Western Edition and East End Independ­ent this week each editorialized about the eruv which has so polarized the Westhampton Beach community. More...

Updated 10/24/2008 12:20 pm

The Hampton Synagogue's response to the legal opinion tendered the Village on behalf of the Alliance for Separation of Church and State for the Greater Westhampton Area, Inc., is in the form of an ominous 23-page letter from attorney Robert Sugarman. More...

One could almost hear the "whooosh" as two-thirds of the meeting room exited after Mayor Conrad Teller announced that nothing would be discussed about Hampton Synagogue's eruv application at the Work Session. More...

Updated 10/21/2008 - 11:08 am

...Fear Village?

We start with the most accurate report to date: "Owner of cafe in Westhampton Beach robbed early Sunday morning." More...

...is it as big a blunder as adjoining residents in Westhampton Beach's Bridle Path have been insisting? More...

You didn't have to be Jewish to attend the second meeting of Jewish People Opposed to the Eruv, but the sheet handed to all who entered Starr Boggs this morning made it very clear that you had to be Opposed!

(The hand-out also forbade the use of any cameras except by "those of the author­ized press," which status I immediately confirmed with one of JPOE's security people as well as Pamela Sheiffer, the wife of a JPOE co-chair, just to avoid any awkwardness later on.) More...

Updated 10/11/2008 - 04:06 pm

Never too old to learn a new word or phrase!

Today it was "'black-hat' Judaism," uncovered just now thanks to a poorly reproduced NY Times page on the JPOE blogspot. More...

Updated 10/10/2008 - 03:23 pm

Hot on the heels of the legal brief sub­mitted to the Village on behalf of the Alliance for Separ­ation of Church and State for the Greater Wes­thampton Area, Inc., Hampton Synagogue has put the municipality on notice that their eruv-related interests will henceforth be represented by one Robert G. Sugarman, Esq. More...

...a May 10th Yeshiva World précis of WCBS2 and NY Post reports on the eruv controversy.

While the rehash was as superficial as the re­ports it cannibalized, it was instructive to read the Reader Comments: More...

Updated 10/08/2008 - 01:27 pm

A legal memorandum co-authored by constitu­tional scholar Marci Hamilton and attorney Bruce Rosen, and submitted to the Village two days ago, makes a brief that the municipality is under no legal obligation to approve a pe­ti­tion by Hampton Synagogue for an eruv in the middle of main­land Westhampton Beach. More...

Turner Broadcasting, part of the AOL/Time-Warner holdings, may not have been around in 1968, but the lesson of that Sunday, Novem­ber 17th has not been lost on them. More...

...but not at the hand of Rabbi Marc Schneier.

(That "other shoe" remains to be dropped.) More...

Updated 10/06/2008 - 02:36 pm

Ah, these off-peak Village Board meetings... as Estragon tells Vladimir in Beckett's "Waiting for Godot:"

"No one comes, no one goes. It's horrible."

(Well, the Board itself probably doesn't think it's all that awful, and may More...