DAN'S PAPERS, July 11, 2008 Page 27 www.danshamptons.com
Tahoe Finale About that Tahoe; Insurance Co. Sends Check & Apologizes By Dan Rattiner It was only $488.37, but for me, it was the sweetest check I have ever cashed. Written by the Hartford Insurance Company, it was their check #0100360192, and it was made out to me because of what I had to endure at the hands of the East Hampton Village Police, because of a 17-day clerical error Hartford made in 2006 with my auto insurance. There was also a letter of apology, written by the NYC Regional Manager of that firm, Robert G. Hughes. Here is what it read. June 26, 2008 Dear Mr. Rattiner, Enclosed please find a draft for the amount
of $488.37. This sum is based on the direct outof-pocket expenses you incurred as a result of the incident of March 29, 2008. As you know, due to an unfortunate administrative processing error on the part of Hartford Financial Services, you incurred fines which may have been preventable. Please accept this payment as a gesture of goodwill on our behalf. I apologize, on behalf of The Hartford. Our customers are important to us, and we hope you will choose to renew your insurance with The Hartford. Sincerely, Robert Hughes The events of March 29 referred to in the letter were as follows. My fiancée and I had
parked our car legally on Montauk Highway in front of Citarella in East Hampton in order to go shopping there. It was 11 a.m. The car was fully insured, was properly registered, had its payments up-to-date, was guilty of no violation that we knew of and was parked correctly. We shopped. We came out to find lights flashing, and three police cars and five police officers waiting for us with serious expressions on their faces. They were there for the car. And, as I recall, the way they arranged themselves on Montauk Highway, they blocked at least one of the three lanes. The matter involved something I knew (continued on the next page)
YOU GET “ONE PARTY A YEAR” IN SOUTHAMPTON By Dan Rattiner The powers that be out here in the Hamptons have decided, as everybody knows, to enforce the laws more aggressively than they used to. It wasn’t clear to me why this was for a very long time, but then the Chief of the Quogue Police Department told me that the word has come down from the federal government to the states, and from them to the towns and cities. The idea, as it was explained to me, is that we can all do a better job fighting terrorism if we are up close and personal with perps or potential perps — particularly terrorist perps — wherever they might be found.
In any case, Southampton Town Board member Nancy Grabowski has been combing through the ordinance books this past week or two looking for laws that, up until now, might have been ignored. Her thinking seems to be that perhaps some laws, if not aggressively enforced, should be brought up-to-snuff. Maybe they shouldn’t be on the books at all. Better look at those books. For example, there is the very old law, probably going back to colonial times in Southampton Village, that says you’re supposed to observe the village dress codes when walking about downtown. What if, when
looked at closely, it turns out that the punishment for this law was that the perp be marched through town naked so the townspeople could throw trash at her? Or him? Who reads these ordinances, anyway? One law that Grabowski’s come upon, which is a quite recently passed law, says that homeowners in Southampton Town may only hold one party of 50 people or more on their property a year. It was passed five years ago in conjunction with another law that said that if you have a party on your property that involved 50 guests (continued on page 47)