A teenager living in Port Jefferson is missing after visiting family over the weekend.
According to the Suffolk County Police Department, 16-year-old Aaron Montemarano is on probation and has been ordered by a judge to live at the Montfort Therapeutic Residence, which is on Stonyhill Road and operates under the umbrella of local social services nonprofit Hope House Ministries.
But the young man was reported missing on Sunday night, after he visited family in Mastic Beach over the weekend and did not return to the Port Jefferson facility.
Police described Montemarano as black, measuring 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighing about 135 pounds. He has brown eyes and brown curly hair.
Anyone with information about whereabouts is asked to call 911 or 631-854-8652.
A Lindy's Taxi waits in the Port Jefferson Long Island Rail Road parking lot. File photo
A Lindy’s Taxi waits in the Port Jefferson Long Island Rail Road parking lot. File photo
Story last updated at 3 p.m. on June 6
By Elana Glowatz
Police said Lindy’s Taxi vehicles were involved in two crashes on Route 112 in the last few days, one of them fatal and one against a red light.
In the first incident, a walking woman was killed early on Sunday morning when a taxi hit her, according to the Suffolk County Police Department.
Police said the victim, Gail Oses, was walking on Route 112 in Port Jefferson Station shortly after 3 a.m. — just south of Chereb Lane — when the southbound 2010 Ford Crown Victoria, a Lindy’s Taxi vehicle, struck her. She was pronounced dead at John T. Mather Memorial Hospital, up the road in Port Jefferson.
The taxi driver, 64-year-old Centereach man Brendan Hurst, was not hurt, police said, and neither were his two male passengers.
On Monday morning, another cab was involved in a crash down the road in Coram that hurt a motorcyclist. Police said the 2009 Crown Victoria, which was heading east on Route 25, went through a red light and hit a motorcycle that was going north on Route 112 shortly after 7 a.m.
The motorcyclist, 49-year-old Mastic man Jack Monti, was being treated for seriously leg injuries at Stony Brook University Hospital.
According to police, 43-year-old Centereach resident Mindy Shaw was driving the taxi and was issued a summons for failing to stop at the traffic light.
There were no passengers in the cab at the time of the crash.
When reached by phone at the company’s corporate office in Islandia on Monday, a Lindy’s Taxi spokesperson said, “These two accidents are both tragic and we are cooperating with the police and doing an internal investigation on each of them to see exactly what occurred.”
Police impounded the Crown Victorias and the Honda motorcycle for a safety check.
Detectives from the SCPD’s 6th Squad are investigating the crashes. Anyone with information can call them at 631-854-8652.
A Maryland man was stabbed in the face inside a Huntington bar early Saturday morning.
An Acacia bar patron alerted police shortly before 2 a.m. that a man had been stabbed inside the establishment, the Suffolk County Police Department said, and the Huntington Community First Aid Squad brought the victim to the hospital.
The 22-year-old victim, who police said is from Maryland, was treated for a non-life-threatening facial injury at Huntington Hospital.
Detectives are investigating the stabbing at the bar, which is located on New York Avenue near Elm Street. Anyone with information is asked to call them at 631-854-8252, or to call Crime Stoppers anonymously at 800-220-TIPS.
A pedestrian was seriously injured in a hit-and-run late on Wednesday night and police are searching for the white sedan driver who is responsible.
The female victim was crossing Route 112 near Middle Country Road in Coram a little before midnight when she was hit by the northbound sedan, according to the Suffolk County Police Department. The woman was hurt but the car’s driver fled the scene, continuing north on Route 112.
Police did not identify the victim but said she was listed in serious condition at Stony Brook University Hospital.
Anyone with information about the crash or about the white sedan is asked to call police at 631-854-8652, or to call Crime Stoppers anonymously at 800-220-TIPS.
Police allege a teenager stole multiple all-terrain vehicles in Huntington Station.
Officers recovered several of the ATVs on Wednesday while responding to a call from someone who claimed to have observed his stolen vehicle on West Pulaski Road near New York Avenue that afternoon, the Suffolk County Police Department said. Detectives investigated and recovered five stolen ATVs, three of which were reported stolen in the Huntington area.
Of the remaining two vehicles, one was stolen from West Islip and the other from Nassau County.
According to police, a sixth ATV was impounded for further investigation. It was not clear where it came from.
Timothy Flythe, a 17-year-old Huntington Station resident, allegedly possessed the stolen property. Police charged him with criminal possession of stolen property — one count in the third degree and four counts in the fourth-degree.
Attorney information for Flythe was not available Thursday morning on the New York State court system’s online database.
Anyone with information on the case is asked to contact detectives at 631-854-8252.
PJ Village Trustee Bruce Miller says commuters to NYC have stayed away from the PJ line without electrification. Photo by Elana Glowatz
By Elana Glowatz
Two village trustees are unopposed for re-election this month, each with his own goals for improving Port Jefferson.
Bruce D’Abramo and Bruce Miller are seeking a fourth term and a second term on the village board of trustees, respectively.
Bruce Miller is running for re-election. Photo by Elana Glowatz
Miller wants to keep up his work to get the Port Jefferson power plant upgraded, known as repowering. The aging power plant runs on outdated technology and many residents and officials fear the loss of its significant property tax revenue if it were to shut down without being rebuilt.
“It’s something that I’ve been doing for about 20 years,” he explained, between his work on the Port Jefferson school board and with the local group Grassroots Committee to Repower Port Jefferson. “I want to try to see this thing through. I think it’s very important to the community. I have other interests but I have I think significant expertise in this area and think that I can benefit the people of the village.”
Miller is also interested in environmental issues, and said he has been working with the village’s conservation committee on making the village more energy-efficient and on strengthening the power grid in Port Jefferson to better withstand storms. He is helping put together a proposal to receive grant funding for a microgrid, which would be independent of the regional grid and rely on its own power-generating resources — and thus keep the community, which includes two hospitals, going during power outages.
For those who may vote for him, Miller said he strives to “keep in mind [the idea of] a small maritime New England village.”
Bruce D’Abramo is running for re-election. Photo by Elana Glowatz
The other candidate, D’Abramo, is running for two more years because “I love what I’m doing in Port Jefferson and I love the difference that we’re making.”
He said his top priority in the past and in a new term is to “turn uptown port Jefferson around into a community that we can all be proud of.”
One thing he is particularly proud of accomplishing in his third term, however, is in the downtown area: the beautification of Old Mill Creek.
The polluted creek winds through the west side of lower Port, including under Barnum Avenue and behind Village Hall, before flowing into the harbor. In addition to being contaminated by chemicals that had been dumped at an industrial site in Port Jefferson Station and had traveled through the groundwater, it was plagued by invasive plant species. But in the last year, the village put a plan into action to clean up the creek, improve its flow and remove the invasive species and replace them with native ones.
Another project he is proud of is using money left over in last year’s budget to pave additional streets in the part of the village referred to as the “poets section,” which includes Emerson Street, Longfellow Lane, Hawthorne Street and others.
“Every time we can put some money into the infrastructure, we’re doing something that’s going to last for a while; that’s going to make a difference,” D’Abramo said.
To the voters going to the polls later this month, the trustee said, “If they’re interested in seeing upper Port Jefferson change, then consider voting for me.”
Voting is at the Port Jefferson Village Center on June 21, from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. There is also a village judge seat on the ballot, to complete the three years remaining on the term of Justice Peter Graham, who died in office in October, a few months after being re-elected. Graham, who was known for his colorful personality, had served the village for more than 30 years.
Bill Glass was appointed to replace him in the interim, and the lawyer is running for election to stay in that role. He faces challenges from Tara Higgins and Scott Zamek.
Vapors is located on Main Street in Port Jefferson. Photo by Elana Glowatz
Local governments are cracking down on smoking in all its forms by confining related businesses to certain locations.
Brookhaven Town recently restricted smoke shops and lounges and one village is looking to strengthen rules already in place for the establishments.
The action started in the fall, when the Port Jefferson Village Board of Trustees passed a law that effectively banned hookah shops, as well as tattoo parlors and adult entertainment. Residents and village officials had been vocal about what they perceived to be too many shops on Main Street selling hookahs — water pipes used for smoking flavored tobacco — and their related products. Many had complained that the businesses attract an undesirable type of person to the area and sell unhealthy items. Some also said they feared the shops would sell paraphernalia and dangerous substances to underage patrons.
The dissent propelled a law that now restricts future hookah shops, tattoo parlors and adult establishments like topless bars to the Light Industrial I-2 District zone. While the preexisting shops are not affected, the law effectively bans future shops because only two properties in the entire village are zoned light industrial — and both of those Columbia Street plots are already occupied.
Hookah City is located on Main Street in Port Jefferson. Photo by Elana Glowatz
Passing an outright ban would have been an illegal action.
Port Jefferson Village is now seeking to tighten its restrictions by folding into the law marijuana dispensaries and stores selling products linked to e-cigarettes and vaporizers. The village code proposal, which will come up for a public hearing on June 6, states that such establishments bring “well-documented negative secondary effects … such as increased crime, decreased property values and reduced shopping and commercial activities.” It also cites the health risks of e-cigarettes and the dangers of exposing children to the behavior.
“The expansion of the foregoing businesses has resulted in increased anti-social behavior involving minors,” it says.
Among the restrictions, the shops in the light industrial zone could not be within a certain distance of facilities such as community centers, churches or schools.
The Town of Brookhaven got on the same train recently when its town board passed a law on May 12 that restricts indoor smoking establishments — businesses in which tobacco in any form, including through e-cigarettes and vaporizers, or other substances are smoked indoors. New shops can now no longer open within certain distances of residential areas, schools, churches, parks or other family- or child-oriented places. They also cannot open within 1 mile of one another.
Councilwoman Jane Bonner (C-Rocky Point), who came up with the idea, touted it as a measure to prevent kids from using drugs.
“You cannot believe how creative addicts and users are when it comes to situations like this,” she said, “what they can do and how they can manipulate this apparatus.”
Some have used hookahs, vaporizers and other tobacco devices to smoke marijuana, among other substances.
“This legislation came to pass because of what we see, what’s happening in our communities all over the place,” Bonner said. “This is a very important first step and we may take further steps as we see how this works out.”
Both the town and village laws have had their critics. In Port Jefferson, Trustee Bruce D’Abramo and other residents did not want the village interfering with the free market, which would determine how many smoke shops one neighborhood could sustain, and did not want the village policing people’s heath. They compared the smoke shops to the numerous bars in downtown Port Jefferson.
And Alex Patel, who works at Rocky Point Smoke & Vape Shop, said the town law might have little payoff because parents buy devices for their kids or the kids shop online — those under 21 may still get what they are looking for.
“Online, I see people buying left and right,” Patel said about vaporizers and similar devices. “It’s much cheaper online because they’re buying in bulk.”
But the town law also had community support: “When I think of these [smoking] lounges I think of heroin dens, something I read about and saw movies about when I was a child and scared the heck out of me,” Jeff Kagan, of the Affiliated Brookhaven Civic Organization, said May 12. “I believe that we don’t really know what these dens are all about or what’s really going to go on in these facilities. We don’t know the long-term impact.”
A young man was getting out of his car on Saturday morning when he was hit in the head by a man with a gun in what police are calling a robbery.
The Suffolk County Police Department is looking for three male assailants after the incident outside the 7-Eleven on Broadway in Greenlawn, shortly after midnight.
It began when the 21-year-old victim was getting out of his car in the convenience store parking lot, police said. Three men approached him, one displaying a handgun. That gun-wielding suspect struck the 21-year-old in the head, but he fled without handing over any of his belongings and called 911.
Police did not give further details on the exchange between the victim and the attackers, but called the incident a robbery.
All three assailants were wearing dark clothing, police said. One was described as a thin, dark-skinned black man in his late teens, standing about 5 feet 7 inches. Another was described as being about 5 feet 10 inches tall, weighing about 150 pounds and wearing a mask.
Detectives from the SCPD’s 2nd Squad are investigating the incident. Anyone with information i asked to call them at 631-854-8252 or to call Crime Stoppers anonymously at 800-220-TIPS.
A teen was killed when his car overturned in the woods on William Floyd Parkway early on Saturday.
The Suffolk County Police Department said the Shoreham 19-year-old was pronounced dead at the scene after a police officer observed his 2005 Suzuki overturned in the northbound media near Whiskey Road at 5:45 a.m.
There were no other cars involved in the crash that killed the teen, identified as Kevin Callejas, according to police.
Detectives from the 7th Squad are investigating and impounded the Suzuki for a safety check.
Anyone who may have witnessed the crash is asked to call the squad at 631-852-8752.
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