MARKET WATCH COLUMNIST
It’s as key to Hamptons-weekend extravagance as Diva vodka martinis and Lamborghini golf carts: The Friday-afternoon helicopter ride east.
Wasting half the cocktail hour in LIE backups? Getting stuck on Route 27 behind a pokey landscaper’s truck? Only a schlub would suffer indignities like those!
But those choppers all have rotors, and those rotors all make noise. And the buzz-buzz-buzzing in the sky from the high-flying time-is-money weekenders has been making life increasingly miserable for the suffering people on the ground. The heaven of soaring above it all has created a special ear-splitting hell below.
So why can’t the racket be quieted once and for all?
Despite years of trying, no one – not the local politicians, not the Federal Aviation Administration, not the helicopter companies or their high-flying customers – has gotten beyond toothless voluntary guidelines.
And on Friday, we learned the roar won’t be dulled this summer either.
How much longer should the ground people wait? Local citizens groups on the North Shore and the East End say some of their folks almost have to wear earplugs to their backyard barbecues. And they sure wish the government would do some real governing.
But the FAA’s plan to enforce actual rules needs more public comment, the federal agency says. It would tell the pilots to do most of their flying where most people aren’t – at least a mile offshore in the Long Island Sound and, when crossing over land, chose “least populated” areas.
This may not be perfect, but it is a decent starting point. And no voluntary guideline seems capable of succeeding here.
LET’S ALSO GROUND
1. Kiddie birthdays with wedding price tags
2. Loud train talkers
3. Double-parked Humvees
4. More than five dinner specials in a restaurant
5. Pastel men’s pants
ASKED AND UNANSWERED:
Will the Anti-Defamation League’s next seminar be titled, “Proud History of the Anti-Defamation League”? After the Ground Zero mosque waffle, it might not be such a bad idea….After the big Cheez Doodler Morris Yohai died at home in Kings Park, did the guys from the funeral home have to clean the sticky orange stuff off his fingers one last time?…If Riverhead officials can use Google Earth to spot illegal swimming pools, what else can picture-of-the-planet search help to identity?…Why would the LIRR and Metro-North have so much higher an employee-overtime rate than the city subway?…What’s the real reason so many LI supermarkets are turning bag-stingy? Environmental sensitivity – or cheapness?… Rangel’s fundraiser is still on? Should I pay by cash, check or direct deposit into his prison-commissary account?…Any leads in the Darth Vader stick-up at the Chase branch in Setauket? Is it possible – that really was the Star Wars villain?…Real-estate price collapse? Not in Christie Brinkley’s dreams, there isn’t, where the supermodel’s $7.15 million (2004) Sag Harbor house is on the market for $15.75 mil (2010)…What’s the bigger health threat? West Nile? Or fear of West Nile?…How’s morale these days among Hempstead police commanders? The brass taking deputy chief Willie Dixon’s race-discrimination suit in perfect stride?
ELLIS’ LONG ISLANDER OF THE WEEK
SOUTHAMPTON TOWN JUSTICE ALLEN SMITH
The law is clear on one point: Everyone is supposed to get an equal shot in court, no matter who the defendant is. Even if the defendant is a former Southampton Town Supervisor on an embarrassing DWI case. Justice Allen Smith understands that principle. She is presiding over the Linda Kabor case. Kabor’s attorney wanted to exclude a videotape, a statement to police and the former supervisor’s refusal to take a breathaliyzer. Trial will begin in October with all that evidence introduced.
E-mail ellis@henican.com. Follow him at twitter.com/henican
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