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Monthly Archives: October 2015

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By Linda M. Toga, Esq.

The Facts: I recently divorced my spouse. I was told that once the divorce was finalized, it won’t matter that my spouse is named as the primary beneficiary of my estate in my will since that designation will essentially be ignored.

The Questions: Is it true that my estate will not pass to my ex-spouse regardless of the fact that he is named as a beneficiary in my will? If so, is there any reason for me to update my will? What other documents, if any, should I revise now that I am divorced?

The Answer:  It is true that under New York law, if you are divorced from your spouse at the time of your death, the bequests made to him in your will will be revoked and your estate will pass as if your ex-spouse predeceased you.

In addition, if you named your ex-spouse as executor, that designation will also be revoked. However, the fact that the bequest to your ex-spouse and his appointment as executor are automatically revoked as a result of your divorce, it is important that you review not only your will but also your power of attorney, health care proxy, life insurance and account beneficiary designations and the title to your real property to ensure that your wishes with respect to your assets and end-of-life care are properly memorialized and honored.

If, for example, your ex-spouse was named in your will as your executor and his sister was named as your successor executor, you may want to revise your will so that no one in your ex-spouse’s family is in charge of your estate. Similarly, if you created a trust in which you named your ex-spouse or someone in his family as a trustee or beneficiary, now that you are divorced you may want to name other people to serve as trustee and to enjoy the benefits of the trust.

As for your power of attorney and health care proxy, if you do not want your ex-spouse to be your agent, you should have new advanced directives prepared. Otherwise the person you named as your successor agent will become your primary agent, leaving no successor agent in the event the primary agent predeceases you. If that were to happen, and you got to the point where you could not make medical decisions and handle your own affairs, a court may be asked to name a guardian to act on your behalf. Clearly the better course of action is for you to update your power of attorney and health care proxy in light of your divorce.

While you are at it, you should also review and, if necessary, update the beneficiary designation on your life insurance policy and retirement plans and remove your spouse as a co-owner on joint accounts and jointly held property. Since some retirement and pension plans are governed by a federal law that preempts the New York law revoking beneficiary designations from taking effect, you may need to obtain your ex-spouse’s consent to change some of your accounts and designations.

While you are making the necessary changes to your accounts, estate planning documents and beneficiary designation forms, you should consider asking your relatives to review their estate planning documents to ensure that their estate plans take into consideration the fact that you are divorced. It is likely that your parents, for example, would want to revise their estate planning documents if they left their estates to you and your ex-spouse, or if they named your ex-spouse as their agent under their powers of attorney.

Although I urge you to review with an experienced estate planning attorney your estate plan, your beneficiary designations and the manner in which your assets are titled in light of your divorce, I generally recommend that clients revise their estate planning documents as soon as a divorce action is commenced. That way if they die before their divorce is finalized, they can be assured that their soon to be ex-spouse will not inherit everything, be in charge of their estate or be in a position to make financial and medical decisions on their behalf in the event of their incapacity.

Linda M. Toga, Esq. provides legal services in the areas of litigation, estate planning and real estate from her East Setauket office.

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James Hazen Hyde’s 1899 station brougham carriage. Photo by Ellen Barcel

By Ellen Barcel

Mention the Gold Coast era on Long Island, and people immediately think of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby,” and the great mansions built in the early 1900s. Some of those mansions are gone,  victims of housing developments. Others, such as Laurelton Hall and Villa Francesca were both lost to fires. Some are in the public trust, turned into museums or schools like the Vanderbilt Mansions in Centerport and Oakdale. And a few, a very few, are still privately owned, like Oheka Castle, now a luxury hotel and event venue, and the Woolworth mansion. Of the more than 1000 mansions built, less than one third are still in existence.

To highlight the architectural wonders of Long Island’s North and South shore mansions during the “Gatsby” era, the Long Island Museum of American Art, History and Carriages is currently presenting “Gilding the Coasts: Art and Design of Long Island’s Great Estates.”

“The subject of Long Island’s great country house era has been chronicled in numerous other exhibitions, books, and documentary films. We thought it would be interesting to focus on the design and construction aspect of the story more than the social history of the house owners and their servants, which tends to get a larger share of the attention,” said Joshua Ruff, exhibit curator and museum director of collections & interpretation.

From left, 1920s pink party dress with silk faux glass beading, gift of Timothy Smith; embroidered silk gown, 1908, gift of Mrs. B. Langdon and Mrs. William Floyd Nichols; embroidered silk velvet evening opera cape, 1912, gift of Grace Rumbough. Photo by Ellen Barcel
From left, 1920s pink party dress with silk faux glass beading, gift of Timothy Smith; embroidered silk gown, 1908, gift of Mrs. B. Langdon and Mrs. William Floyd Nichols; embroidered silk velvet evening opera cape, 1912, gift of Grace Rumbough. Photo by Ellen Barcel

Some of the mansion owners are well known, while others less so. Ruff continued, “We wanted to look at both the extremely well-known figures in this story, … like Stanford White, Louis Comfort Tiffany, and William Delano, as well as those people and their houses who have not received the same level of attention, such as William de Leftwich Dodge, who designed and lived in the fascinating and unique Villa Francesca, just a couple of miles away from the museum [in Setauket].”

The exhibit includes furniture from some of the estates, beautiful antique women’s clothing, estate plans, photos, paintings, Tiffany lamps, sculpture and even the very unique weather vane from Vanderbilt’s Eagle’s Nest.

“One of the most interesting stories that I learned much more about in the development of this exhibition was that of James Hazen Hyde (1876-1959), heir to Equitable Life Insurance and owner of a spectacular house and estate in Bay Shore, a place which he inherited from his father, redesigned and named The Oaks.

Hyde was a major figure in Gilded Age society who was forced to exile in France after a scandal in 1905. In the exhibition, we have a terrific close-to-life scale portrait of him located beside a brougham carriage that he owned, as well as a painting of his estate. The paintings came to us from New York Historical Society, the carriage is ours. It was terrific to pull all of this material together,” said Ruff.

While some of the items on display belong to the museum, Ruff noted that, “We were pleased to have received very significant loans from the Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities, the Vanderbilt Museum, Planting Fields, the New-York Historical Society, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Huntington Historical Society.  We also received excellent important loans from a number of private collectors, especially Daniel and Betsy White of Box Hill, Leftwich Kimbrough, the grandson of William de Leftwich Dodge, and Gold Coast historian Paul Mateyunas.”

An important feature of the exhibit is the gigantic time line which encircles the gallery. It begins in 1866 with the formation of the Southside Sportsman’s Club, which catered to the wealthy residents of the South Shore. It ends in 2015, with the sad notation that a fire badly damaged the 25,000 square foot Woolworth mansion in Glen Cove.

Noted Ruff, “Adaptive reuse has been the saving grace for many historic Long Island estates. Thankfully, people can still visit and appreciate William Cutting Bayard’s Westbrook Estate — Bayard Cutting Arboretum, Otto Kahn’s Oheka, William Coe’s Coe Hall — Planting Fields Arboretum and State Park, The Phipps Estate — Old Westbury Gardens and many more. We really hope that the exhibition encourages visitors to seek out and explore the treasures that are available to them a short drive away and to appreciate how fragile and vulnerable these estates are, and worthy of our protection.”

“It is wonderful that Box Hill still exists in an excellent state of preservation and remains in family hands after all these generations. Sadly, Laurelton Hall and Villa Francesca were both lost to fires within several years of one another,” he added.

Julie Diamond, director of communications at the museum, said a bus trip is planned in November to the Culinary Institute and the Vanderbilt Estate upstate in Hyde Park, an interesting comparison to Long Island’s Vanderbilt Estate.

Dori Portes, the museum’s receptionist for the past 17 years, said, “This is one of the three top exhibits I’ve seen,” in all that time. “It’s stunning, just beautiful!”

An illustrated exhibit program, which not only includes information on the artifacts in the exhibit but the time line as well, is available from the museum.

The exhibit is open through Sunday, Oct. 25. Don’t miss this fascinating look at historic Long Island. The LIM, a Smithsonian affiliate, is located at 1200 Route 25A, Stony Brook. It is open Thursday through Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday, from noon to 5 p.m. For further information, call 631-751-0066 or go to www.longislandmuseum.org.

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Port Jefferson shops such as Hookah City on Main Street, above, sell hookahs. Photo by Elana Glowatz

Taking a stand against what some see as troubling business activity and the undesirable type of people it attracts, the Port Jefferson Village Board of Trustees approved a law Monday night that effectively bans new hookah-selling shops and tattoo parlors.

Residents and village officials have been vocal lately about the abundance of shops on Main Street selling hookahs and products related to the smoking apparatuses, with some saying the stores attract a criminal element and sell unhealthy products. More than a year after a similar yet simpler proposal was abandoned, the board has amended its zoning code to restrict those businesses, as well as tattoo parlors and adult establishments like topless bars, to the Light Industrial I-2 District.

The village’s four current hookah shops will not be shuttered under the new law because they represent preexisting uses, but the measure all but bans future hookah shops, hookah parlors, tattoo parlors and adult businesses, as there are only two properties in the entire village in the I-2 zoning district — on Columbia Street — and both are already occupied.

Board members approved the law at their Monday meeting with a 3-2 vote, with Trustees Bruce Miller and Bruce D’Abramo in opposition.

D’Abramo was the most vocal opponent of the proposal’s previous iteration, which would have simply banned hookah parlors — lounges where people can smoke tobacco products using a hookah. He repeated a stance at the meeting that he held through that last proposal as well as through discussion about the new law: that the government should let the free market regulate legally operating businesses.

“I believe that the marketplace cannot support four of these places in the village,” he said. “I think it will serve only to make our code book thicker and therefore dilute its effectiveness. … I believe the marketplace will do the same thing that it did when we had a yogurt place across the street from another yogurt place. … And it closed.”

Although there were more calls from residents opposed to the village interfering with the market the first time around — with some even comparing hookah establishments to the village’s numerous bars that are allowed to operate — D’Abramo did not receive as much resident support recently.

Over the last few board meetings, concerned parents and neighbors have called upon the village to take action against hookah-selling shops, citing fears that they will sell paraphernalia and dangerous substances to underage patrons and attract loiterers and drug dealers. Resident Nancy Cerullo said Monday she is concerned about “the culture that it is bringing.”

When residents asked about banning the shops outright, officials pointed out that would be unconstitutional, but said they could restrict the locations where they operate.

“As long as you allow it to be somewhere,” Mayor Margot Garant said.

With the discussion of the law dominated by comments about hookah shops, Barbara Sabatino, a resident, business owner and planning board member, questioned whether tattoo parlors should be lumped in with those establishments in the new restrictions. She noted that tattoos are becoming more mainstream, particularly among young adults.

The Board of Trustees narrowly voted to approve the law moments after closing the public hearing.

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Smithtown Republicans endorse Lisa Inzerillo, right, in her bid for the board. From left to right, Councilman Tom McCarthy, Councilwoman Lynne Nowick, Assemblyman Mike Fitzpatrick, Supervisor Pat Vecchio and Suffolk County Legislator Rob Trotta. Photo by Phil Corso

Three of the five members of the Republican-dominated Smithtown Town Board endorsed a political newcomer this week, as she heads into the November election with hopes of unseating an incumbent.

Town Supervisor Pat Vecchio (R) stood beside councilmembers Tom McCarthy (R) and Lynne Nowick (R) on the steps of Town Hall on Monday to publicly endorse Lisa Inzerillo in her bid for the board, flanked also by other Smithtown-based elected officials. Inzerillo was one of two to land the GOP line in next month’s town board election, with 1,388 votes in a primary, alongside incumbent Councilman Ed Wehrheim (R), who received 1,830 votes. But fellow incumbent Councilman Bob Creighton (R) was left on the outskirts with 1,306 votes, forcing him to run on the Conservative, Independent and Reform party lines.

Vecchio emceed the press conference as a means of bringing Republicans together to support members of their own party, but two fellow party members were noticeably absent from the dais.

“On Sept. 10, there was a Republican primary, and Lisa Inzerillo was the winner. She is a Republican and she deserves the support of all Republican elected officials,” Vecchio said. “We as Republicans believe that the party has to support the winner of the Republican primary. To do otherwise is contrary to every tenet of any party, and the bylaws of any party.”

Both McCarthy and Nowick recalled times when they came out of Republican primaries victorious before earning their spots on the board and threw support behind Inzerillo with hopes of seeing her follow a similar path.

“In 1997, I was in a primary also,” McCarthy said. “I was on the outside, basically as a businessman, and it’d be nice to have another person from the outside — a civic-minded person on the board.”

Also throwing their support behind Inzerillo were state Assemblyman Mike Fitzpatrick (R-St. James) and Suffolk County Legislator Rob Trotta (R-Fort Salonga).

Wehrheim, who also won the three-way primary with the most votes of the three, was not included in the endorsement and said in a phone interview he was standing behind his fellow councilman in Creighton, despite the candidate not garnering enough votes to get his name on the Republican line next month.

“[Councilman Creighton] is a colleague and consummate professional. We have an excellent working relationship and I believe he deserves to be elected a third time, based on his record alone,” Wehrheim said. “If they were good Republicans, they would have supported Councilman Creighton [in the primary] as the incumbent Republican official running for re-election. He was chosen by the Republican party.”

Wehrheim and Creighton voted together on some of the town board’s more divisive decisions over the past several years, often being outnumbered 3-2. For that reason, Creighton said he did not expect the supervisor’s support as he sought another term.

“I’m not in any way surprised,” Creighton said. “The supervisor wants and desperately needs one more vote on the town board to make it absolutely Mr. Vecchio’s board.”

Both Creighton’s and Wehrheim’s seats on the board will be up for a vote come November, with the incumbents facing off against Inzerillo and Democrat Larry Vetter, who announced his candidacy earlier this year.

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By Sen. Ken LaValle

Today, we live in a fast-paced society where change is no longer measured year-to-year but is determined in minute-to-minute increments.

By the time we master a new technology or system, it is time to upgrade to the next. Perhaps there is no better example of fast pace change than in the world of health care.

Doctors are now employed by hospitals, hospitals are joining hospital systems and hospital systems are expanding into new geographical areas creating an atmosphere of competition unprecedented in years past.

In this dynamic health care environment, I take great pride in the fact that two of our local hospitals have recognized that by working together, the quality of health care in our community significantly improves. We are fortunate to have Stony Brook Medicine — an outstanding, tertiary care hospital and research-intense medical school, in close proximity to John T. Mather Memorial Hospital — one of our region’s premiere community teaching hospitals.

In years past, a patient oftentimes had to choose between the two hospitals in determining their level of care. Today, the hospitals work together to provide access to quality care and services through state-of-the art technology.

For example, recent clinical research at Stony Brook established a new approach to the definitive diagnosis of cardiac disease in patients with chest pain. Stony Brook then spread this technology to Mather Hospital, so that a patient entering Mather with chest pain has their cardiac CT scan read remotely by doctors at Stony Brook, reducing unnecessary hospital admissions.

Mather has also teamed up with Stony Brook radiologists who read all of the radiology studies, CT, MRI and X-rays, for Mather Hospital patients. The two hospitals have implemented a seamless transfer process for patients with complex medical problems that require services available only at the tertiary care hospital.

For example, patients arriving at Mather Emergency Department with stroke symptoms are rapidly assessed and treated. Those patients who require neurointerventional therapies are transferred to Stony Brook where neurosurgeons can move quickly and remove or break up clots, saving brain tissue and thereby improving brain function following recovery.

On the educational front, Stony Brook currently sponsors the training of internal medicine residents at Mather Hospital, providing a mechanism to attract and maintain quality doctors in the years ahead.

The relationship between Stony Brook Medicine and Mather Hospital demonstrates what can be achieved when institutions make the commitment to reach out and complement each other’s strengths. In this case, the results have brought about improved and more efficient health care services at a cost savings achieved by eliminating duplication.

As we continue to navigate the quickly changing health care landscape and focus more on health management and prevention strategies, I am hopeful that opportunities for collaboration and cooperation continue to grow and that our local hospitals find new and innovative ways to provide residents with the best possible health care close to home.

Senator Ken LaValle (R-Port Jefferson) is a member of the New York State Senate, representing the First District.

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How is the food in China?” That is one of the most often-asked questions when people learn that I have just returned from my trip accompanying my son (see also last week’s column). The answer is the same as it would be here: It depends where you eat. As my son was invited to speak at a half-dozen medical centers, his hosts graciously provided some meals that we enjoyed, although we didn’t always know what we were eating. Yes, the food was somewhat different from that served in Chinese restaurants here. In China, vegetables can be eaten, especially greens, at every meal with abundant tofu. Some of the dishes I had not seen before, and also some of their delicious fruits were new to us. There were fewer heavy sauces, less fried foods, lots of fish and seafood and smaller portions of meat — pork, chicken and some beef — often in combination with vegetables. Depending on the region, there was varying emphasis on sweet or spice. Dumplings were a constant, and soup with noodles came at the end of the meal. Dishes were placed on a large Lazy Susan in the center of the table, and each person plucked morsels with chopsticks as the turntable rotated. There were almost never any dairy products; many Asians are lactose intolerant.

A treat for the Chinese, and therefore for us, was “hot pot.” We sat in a restaurant at a round table, in the center of which was a heating element topped by a pot divided into two compartments. One half was for herbs floating in a consommé, the other for “spicy” — and they mean it. The wait staff brought dishes ranging from fish to meat to vegetables and tofu, all cut into bite-sized pieces. We had prepared ourselves with small bowls of spices that we had chosen from perhaps two-dozen offerings on an adjoining side bar. As the liquid boiled, we dipped in our bits of fish or spinach, much as you would with fondue. But instead of coating the food, we were actually cooking it, for a few seconds or however long we wished, then dragging it through our bowl of spices on the way to our mouths.

During our trip of more than some 3,000 miles, we visited six cities and a dramatic near-9,000-foot volcanic mountain with a crater lake in the center. The cities were Shanghai, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Changchun and Beijing, while Changbai Mountain is right on the border with North Korea. All had their special sights, and all had their stories. Throughout, the people were friendly and open, spontaneously answering a smile with one of their own, and interested in us. We knew they were curious because they stood in front of us and stared, something that is not frowned upon culturally. Some of those who spoke English came up to practice and to inquire where we were from and why we had come. The majority of tourists in China, especially this past year, are Chinese which speaks to the growing middle class; most of the rest are from other Asian countries.

We moved from place to place but only rarely saw the sun and blue sky. Pollution sits atop the country like a bathing cap on a swimmer’s head. As we rode on their bullet train, a high-speed marvel traveling at some 300 kilometers per hour (about 190 mph) from Shanghai to Hangzhou, we could understand why. Through the window, we could see tall buildings with a school in their midst and children playing in the schoolyard. Adjacent to the residences were a couple of factories with thick black smoke rising from their chimneys. Beside the factories were a number of farms, their produce neatly growing in rows carefully tended by the farmers. This pattern was repeated often. There appears to be no zoning; water has to be boiled or bottled for drinking; and agriculture is poisoned by the toxic air. The people and the government well realize the situation and they are trying to rectify matters. It is a price the population is paying for their incredible economic leap forward.

An American woman, living in Beijing who grew up in Northport, told us that she and her husband were staying only one more year because they feared for their baby’s health. Why were they there at all? Both of them were making such high salaries teaching English in the schools, and household help was so cheap.

China is a land of contrasts.

Final installment next week

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Some readers may remember those egg-shaped roly-poly toys from the 1970s called the Weebles. The slogan they used was: “Weebles wobble, but they don’t fall down.”

All these years later, I get it. Adding a few pounds here and there has turned me into something closer to a Weeble, but that’s not what I mean. I get the notion of wobbling. That’s what we do.

Challenges cause us to rock back and forth as we endure losses and defeats.

But, then, much of the time, we don’t fall down. Using material that was more dense at the bottom of the egg-shaped creatures, these Weebles remained upright no matter how many times we flicked our fingers at them.

With humans, however, the mechanism includes the people around us.

I recently attended the bar mitzvah of the son of a great friend from middle school. My friend and I met when we were the same age as our sons. It’s one of the many pause-to-reflect landmarks along the road of life. I remember thinking how incredibly old I’d be in the year 2000. I also remember passing my mother’s age when she gave birth to me even before I met my wife.

Anyway, back at the bar mitzvah, my friend stood with his wife, both beaming as their son sang a text in a language none of them can speak.

These rites of passage aren’t easy. They’re not like getting up in the morning and deciding what clothing to wear at the last minute. They take months to plan, involve commitment and sometimes seem so far away that they are a distant dot on an unimaginable horizon.

And then, all of a sudden, the future is now. There we are, moving into a new role, cheering on our children or, in my case, the son of my friend.

Those years weren’t always easy. There isn’t a parenting playbook we can consult on Page 9 when a child can’t fall asleep or Page 15 when a child suddenly can’t keep any food down. Yes, of course, there are books on parenting that offer just that kind of advice, but there’s always an added curve. We also make our own playbook as we go, combining lessons each set of grandparents taught us.

One such curve hit us during the delivery of our daughter. We had taken several Lamaze classes. None of them, however, prepared us for the hours of attempting to deliver our daughter, followed by what now feels like the inevitable decision to perform a C-section.

My friend gave an emotional speech about his son, sharing the moments of triumph along with some of the unexpected tribulations. As he told the stories about those early years, I remember talking with him over the phone, hearing his voice weakened by fatigue and worry, unsure of the next steps he’d need to take to help his son grow and develop into the young man he would become.

My friend was wobbling. He, his wife and their son got through some of those early difficulties, thanks to the support of the people who were there celebrating this milestone.

These big moments are a wonderful opportunity for us to recognize the life landmarks with the people who have kept us from falling down. They could include everyone from our parents to our neighbors and friends to the teacher who saw the best in our children, even when our children’s confidence was flagging and they felt like anything but The Little Engine That Could. They are also a chance to take stock of the support networks that enable us Weebles to head to the next celebration of life.

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Actor Jason Segel applauds a fan during a book-signing at Book Revue on Oct. 6. Photo by Victoria Espinoza
Actor Jason Segel signs a fan’s cast at Book Revue on Oct. 6. Photo by Victoria Espinoza
Actor Jason Segel signs a fan’s cast at Book Revue on Oct. 6. Photo by Victoria Espinoza

Jason Segel, an actor known for roles in comedies such as “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” “How I Met Your Mother” and “I Love You, Man,” attended a book signing at Book Revue in Huntington on Tuesday to promote his new book, “Nightmares! The Sleepwalker Tonic,” the second installment of a trilogy which he co-authored with Kirsten Miller.

Segel also participated in an audience question-and-answer session, where he discussed if the book series might ever be made into a movie and if the characters are based on any real people in Segel’s life.

Actor Jason Segel shows off his new book, ‘Nightmares! The Sleepwalker Tonic,’ at Book Revue on Oct. 6. Photo by Victoria Espinoza
Actor Jason Segel shows off his new book, ‘Nightmares! The Sleepwalker Tonic,’ at Book Revue on Oct. 6. Photo by Victoria Espinoza

Segel said he started out writing the book series as a script, when he was on the television show “Freaks and Geeks,” so some of the nightmare characters were meant to be played by his friends on the show.

One boy asked if Segel remembered any of the nightmares he had as child.

“Yeah,” Segel said. “My big recurring nightmare, that was in the first book, was witches eating my toes. People asked me, ‘Where does that came from?’ and I figured out it’s because when you’re a baby, parents stand over you and tell you they’re going to eat your toes.”

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Legislator Kara Hahn speaks about the harmful effects of microbeads on Tuesday. Photo from Hahn’s office

A push in the Suffolk County Legislature to ban the sale of personal care products containing microbeads was met with unanimous approval on Tuesday, as state and federal lawmakers are also signing on to the cause.

Suffolk County Legislator Kara Hahn (D-Setauket) celebrated the unanimous vote on Tuesday for legislation crafted with the goal of washing the county free of the tiny, potentially hazardous plastic particles linked to several issues affecting waterways. She stood alongside environmental experts at the county Legislature building in Riverhead, referring to the new ban as a means of keeping Long Island and its surrounding waterways safe.

“There is no place for plastics in our vulnerable bays and waterways,” said Hahn, chair of the Legislature’s Environment Committee and author of the bill. “Microbeads have been found in our precious Long Island Sound, and my legislation will protect our environment, protect our health and protect our fishing and tourism industries.”

Microbeads, which are usually between one and five millimeters in diameter, are typically not filtered out by most wastewater treatment systems. This poses the risk of the tiny beads making their way into surface waters, picking up toxins as they flow from one source to the next. Because of their tiny size, the toxin-laden particles can sometimes be mistaken for food by small fish and other aquatic species.

But it does not end there.

Once the aquatic life consumes the potentially harmful microbeads, they could then make their way into larger living organisms and eventually into the human food supply.

The county legislation said that manufacturers of several personal care products have added the small plastic beads to their facial scrubs, body washes, toothpaste products and select soaps and shampoos over the past 10 years. Now that it has passed, Hahn’s law will go into effect Jan. 1, 2018, and prohibit the sale of any personal care products that contain microbeads in Suffolk County.

Six months before that deadline, Hahn said the Department of Health Services will begin informing retailers selling products that contain microbeads of the new regulations, and enforcement will come through random inspections of at least 10 retailers per quarter in 2018. Anyone who violates the law will be subject to a civil fine of up to $500 for a first offense, a fine of up to $750 for a second offense and a fine of up to $1,000 for all subsequent violations.

Microbead legislation has been gaining traction beyond the Suffolk County level over the past year, with elected officials on both the state and federal levels stepping up to promote the ban of such products. U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman visited Long Island over the summer to announce the Microbead-Free Waters Act of 2015, a bipartisan federal bill that would also ban cosmetics containing the plastic pellets.

Gillibrand’s bill had sponsors and co-sponsors from both sides of the aisle, most of them from the Midwest, according to a press release from the senator’s office. It is similar to a New York state-level bill of the same name, which is Schneiderman’s effort to prohibit the sale and distribution of products containing microbeads.

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The entire cast of ‘Alice’s Wonderland Adventures!’ Photo by Peter Lanscombe, Theatre Three Productions, Inc.

Lewis Carroll’s beloved classic may be more than 150 years old, but “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking-Glass” still resonate with children and adults alike. Now Theatre Three’s creative geniuses Tim Peierls and Jeffrey Sanzel have written a brand new Alice-inspired children’s musical — “Alice’s Wonderland Adventures!” — that opened last Saturday. All the familiar characters are here, from the White Rabbit to the Mad Hatter, to the Queen of Hearts to the beloved Cheshire Cat. Throw in an appearance from Humpty Dumpty and Dorothy Gale, add a quick game of Wheel of Fortune for good measure, and you’ve got yourself a hit show.

Sanzel as director leads a talented group of seven adult actors, all of whom play multiple roles, through a delightful and clever production perfect for younger audiences. Seasoned actors Jenna Kavaler, Amanda Geraci, Hans Paul Hendrickson, Andrew Gasparini and Steve Uihlein are all outstanding, as are newcomers Mary Ortiz and Melanie Acampora, making their children’s theater in-house debut.

In the first act we meet Addison Carroll (Kavaler), an actress who is nervous that she will forget her lines as Alice in “Alice in Wonderland.” In a dream sequence, she finds herself transported to a magical land where the White Rabbit accidently takes her script. Addison spends the rest of the show chasing after the harried hare, trying to get it back. Along the way, accompanied by the Cheshire Cat, she has a tea party with the Mad Hatter, the March Hare and the Dormouse; plays croquet with the Queen of Hearts, who enjoys shouting, “Off with their heads!” a bit too much; and visits with Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Addison’s adventures help her gain confidence and she awakens from her nap, ready to take on the world.

Sanzel knows his target audience well. Every scene is full of song and dance, fast-paced and short. Riddles and jokes run rampant throughout the production: “Why do flowers work in the kitchen? Because you can’t make tarts without flour!”

The 12 original musical numbers by Peierls, accompanied by Steve McCoy on piano, are the heart of the show. Hendrickson is outstanding in his solos, “We’re All a Little Mad Here” and “The Tweedle’s Song,” in which he impressively performs both Tweedle roles, making his solo a duet. Geraci shines in “So Much to Do,” and the entire company’s “Wonderland Within You” is the perfect finale.

The actors utilize the set from the evening show, “Sweeney Todd,” but that’s OK because the costumes and puppets are so colorful and fun, a set is not even necessary. From the caterpillar with his six arms to the long red robe of the Queen of Hearts, costume designer Teresa Matteson has done an excellent job. It is the 13 puppets, however, designed and constructed by the brilliant Tazukie Fearon, that steal the spotlight. From the moment they make an appearance, the children are mesmerized. This is live theater at its best. Meet the cast in the lobby after the show.

Five-year-old Josephine Cunniffe, of Stony Brook, who said she loved the show, enjoyed the performance with her grandparents. Her favorite character was the White Rabbit.

Ashley Kenter, who’s been coming to Theatre Three since she was a little girl, said her favorite characters were “Alice … and the bunny” and her favorite scenes were when the Cheshire Cat told knock-knock jokes. The 10-year-old, who was having her birthday party at the theater, said she decided to celebrate the milestone at Theatre Three “because there is a lot of room here and they have a lot of good shows.” Her favorite show of all time is “Barnaby Saves Christmas,” which by coincidence is the theater’s next children’s show, from Nov. 27 to Dec. 26.

Theatre Three, 412 Main St., Port Jefferson, will present “Alice’s Wonderland Adventures!” through Oct. 24. Tickets are $10. For more information, call the box office at 631-928-9100 or visit www.theatrethree.com.

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