Shake The Dust

The action came shortly after a brouhaha in Southampton Village, in which surfers protested the selective enforcement of a village code restricting when and where surfers could practice their sport. That hullabaloo resulted in members of that Village Board altering their decades-old law to make surfing legal in most places at most times.

Both boards acted quickly to bring their village’s codes up to date. But it begs the question: How many other antiquated old laws and prohibitions are their on the books, both in Westhampton Beach and Southampton, but also in the various nearby villages in the two towns on the East End?

What would happen if a overambitious code enforcement or police officer, or even a curmudgeonly mayor or supervisor, decided to enforce a law that was written a long ago time and in a different atmosphere?

Certainly, with a long winter’s rest on the horizon, our elected leaders and appointed bureaucrats could, and should, begin projects to comb through their assorted code books and weed out any laws that simply don’t apply anymore.