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TBR Staff

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TBR News Media covers everything happening on the North Shore of Suffolk County from Cold Spring Harbor to Wading River.

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Rides will be free on the town bus system’s fixed routes beginning Sept. 21-26 and Sept. 28-Oct. 3. Photo by A.J. Carter

Huntington Area Rapid Transit (HART) buses will be fare-free for two weeks later this month, a move town officials hopes encourages residents to consider the town transit system as an alternative to driving their cars.

The weeks of free fare span Monday, Sept. 21 through Saturday, Sept. 26, and again on Monday, Sept. 28 through Saturday, Oct. 3. There will be no fare charged on HART’s fixed route buses, according to a town spokesperson. The promotion is being held in coordination with International Car Free
Day on Sept. 22. That is an annual event celebrated in more than 1,500 cities in 40 countries during which people are encouraged to get around without cars, using alternate transportation such as transit, biking or carpooling.

Locally, Car Free Day Long Island will be celebrated for the third consecutive year under the auspices of Transit Solutions and 511NYRideshare, who are partnering with the town in presenting the Fare Free Weeks.

The goal of the promotion is to increase ridership on HART, the only town-operated bus system on Long Island.

HART, which has been operating since 1978, revised its routes in January 2013 to adapt to changing demand, improve service and reduce waiting times. This year, HART upgraded its fleet, putting 15 new vehicles into service, including seven 20-passenger clean diesel buses that provide easier maneuverability, greater fuel efficiency and easier passenger access than the 29-passenger vehicles they replaced. HART also has three hybrid buses that are part of the fixed-route service.

“Over its 35 years in existence, HART has developed a loyal, devoted ridership, composed of people who appreciate the ability to get from place to place in the Town without having to use a car,” Huntington Town Supervisor Frank Petrone (D) said in the statement. “We hope that Fare Free Weeks will prompt new riders to give HART a try, learn for themselves what great service HART provides and become frequent riders after the promotion ends.”

The Huntington Town Board authorized Fare Free Weeks in a resolution it approved unanimously at its July 14 meeting. The resolution noted that the town would seek sponsorships to offset the lost passenger revenue.

Petrone and his Town Board colleagues expressed their appreciation to these businesses and organizations that have agreed to become Fare Free Weeks sponsors: Covanta Energy; Stop & Shop; Target; The Paramount; Renaissance Downtowns; Clever Devices; the Huntington Township Chamber of Commerce; and the Huntington Station Business Improvement District.

“HART bus is one of those unique services the town provides, giving people who don’t have cars, including teenagers, the mobility they need for their daily activities,” Councilwoman Tracey Edwards (D) said in a statement. “But HART also provides an opportunity for car owners to get around town and, as the old Greyhound commercial used to say, leave the driving to us, especially if the ride is free.”

Rosemary Mascali, the manager of Transit Solutions and co-chair of the Car Free Day Long Island event, lauded the fare-free initiative.

“We’re thrilled to see the Town of Huntington join in the international celebration of Car Free Day by providing a free ride on HART buses during these two Fare Free Weeks,” Mascali said. “This puts the town at the leading edge of Long Island municipalities in their efforts to encourage residents to try a commute alternative.”

The free rides are available only on fixed route service. Paratransit is unaffected by the promotion. For details on routes and schedules, riders can visit the HART Bus page on the town’s website, https://www.huntingtonny.gov.

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Stock photo

AMVETS Post 1998 in Port Jefferson Station is hosting a fundraising barbecue to support aging and otherwise needy local veterans.

The nonprofit’s annual BBQ will fire up on Saturday, Sept. 12, at 1 p.m. at the American Legion Post, 1450 Hallock Ave., Port Jefferson Station. There will be chicken, hot dogs, burgers, clams, drinks and dessert, as well as a Chinese auction and a raffle.

Tickets are $25 for adults, and kids under 12 are free. They can be purchased through AMVETS Post Commander Barbara Alt at 631-509-4151 or Post Historian Ed Bednarek at 631-331-3853. The tickets will also be on sale at the American Legion on the day of the barbecue.

Contact Alt or Bednarek for more information about the event.

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Passion for music thrives thanks to eSight glasses

Justin Crilly uses the eSight electronic glasses to perform simple tasks like using a computer. Photo by Rachel Siford

By Rachel Siford

Justin Crilly of Smithtown has had an eye-opening experience.

Legally blind 16-year-old Crilly had started using eSights on his eyes and is now able to pursue his passion for music. eSights are electronic glasses that utilize a high-definition camera in the headset to capture a real-time video feed. The headset connects to the processing unit that adjusts every pixel to allow Crilly to see and also houses the battery.

The tech company is fairly new since it launched in 2013.

“When I was first considered legally blind at 3 months old, the doctors said I would never see again,” he said.

Crilly’s mother, Stacy, said she saw an ad for eSight on Facebook and was intrigued. They went to a demo in the city and tried a pair out, and immediately fell in love with them.

“I don’t have to squint walking down the hallway anymore,” he said. “Now I can see when I go to a concert or a movie.”

Justin Crilly sports the eSight glasses, which help him overcome blindness. Photo by Rachel Siford
Justin Crilly sports the eSight glasses, which help him overcome blindness. Photo by Rachel Siford

Crilly’s mother has noticed considerable differences in her son’s behavior since he started wearing the glasses this past March.

“The eSights have increased his independence tremendously,” his mother said. “It makes me less afraid for him to go out into the world.”

She went on to say that it gives him the freedom to do anything he wants, like go away to college when he graduates if he so chooses.

“There was always this worry about how far was he going to make it independently, but now I am elated to know that he can be as independent as anybody else,” Stacy Crilly said. “In a way these glasses freed him from his disability.”

According to his mother, since Justin Crilly was a baby, he always gravitated toward music. He has been looking into music schools for the past several years, excited about where to go to college to pursue a career in music production.

He has been taking music theory and recording at Hauppauge High School for the past year. He is able to plug his eSights directly into the computer, making using the software to make music, at home and at school, much easier. Justin Crilly has taken voice, piano and drum lessons throughout his life and has recently started learning how to DJ at Spin DJ Academy in Hauppauge.

Before he started using eSights, it took Justin Crilly about three hours or more to do homework every night, but now he can knock it out in an hour.

He said he wants to show people that anyone with disabilities can do anything they want.

“I want people to hear my music and think ‘despite that he has a disability, he still made music sound that good,’” Justin Crilly said. “No matter if you have a disability or not, you can do anything with your life.”

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‘Dance of the Haymakers’ by William Sydney Mount, 1845

By Erin Dueñas

The sounds of bluegrass, blues, acoustic and folk music are coming to East Setauket as the fourth annual Fiddle & Folk Festival returns to Benner’s Farm on Sept. 13.

According to Amy Tuttle, program director of the Greater Port Jefferson-North Brookhaven Arts Council, a festival sponsor, the festival is a celebration of acoustic music. “The formula we have found to be successful is to bring in a national act, a well-known blues based act and a Long Island band,” Tuttle said.

Headline acts this year include The Kennedy’s, Brooks Williams and Buddy Merriam with his band, Back Roads. During the festival, Merriam will be given the Long Island Sound Award honoring him for bringing bluegrass music to Long Island for 35 years, presented by the Long Island Music Hall of Fame.

The festival will feature a main stage where the headliners will perform, as well as a smaller stage that will include workshops and question-and-answer segments with the musicians. Another stage will host a jam session where not only will headliners play together to conclude the concert, but festivalgoers can play their own instruments. A kid’s corner will be set up offering story time and music, and the night will conclude with a contra dance, complete with a live band and caller. The farm will also be open where guests can check out organic gardens, barns and farm animals.

“This is an all-ages, family friendly event that people can either sit back to watch or participate in,” Tuttle said.

Charlie Backfish, who hosts the acoustic music show Sunday Street on WUSB 90.1, the radio station on the campus of SUNY Stony Brook, another festival sponsor, said Benner’s Farm is a good location for the event.

“This is the kind of music you probably could’ve heard at a farm at some point in history,” he said. “It really makes sense to have it there.” Backfish will host the question-and-answer session of the festival.

Bob Benner, who lives and works on the 15-acre farm, said the festival is a celebration of not only music but farm life. Benner referred to a painting at the Long Island Museum in Stony Brook by famed local artist William Sydney Mount of a fiddler playing at a barn dance on a farm. “What we are trying to do at the festival is to show what people would do way back when,” he said. “Everyone lived on a farm here on Long Island up until the 1900s.”

The festival is also sponsored by Homestead Arts, the nonprofit educational arm of Benner’s Farm that works toward keeping what Benner called “old time arts and processes” from fading into history. “Homestead arts are all the different things that people had to know how to do away from our modern sensibilities — things like meat processing and vegetable canning,” he said. Music is a big part of that.

“Way back when there were no phonographs, no forms of playing music. The festival has the kind of music you would hear when neighbors got together for haying or working in the fields,” Benner said. “This really is the perfect place for the festival.”

The fourth annual Fiddle & Folk Festival will be held on Sept. 13 at Benner’s Farm, 56 Gnarled Hollow Road, Setauket, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tickets are $15 adults, $11 children and seniors. The event will be held rain or shine. Bring a lawn chair or blanket for seating. Food and drink will be available for purchase. For more information, call 631-689-8172 or visit www.fiddleandfolk.com.

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The Setauket Harbor Task Force is looking to inspire the North Shore to join its cause. Photo by Susan Risoli

By Susan Risoli

The Setauket Harbor Task Force will host its first Setauket Harbor Day Saturday, Sept. 12, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The free event will be held at the Shore Road dock and beach. It will include live music, food, boat tours of the harbor, kayak and paddleboard demonstrations, marine environmental education and presentations about sea captains and boat builders from bygone eras.

Task force members hope the festivities will inspire the community to join them in their efforts to clean and preserve Setauket Harbor, co-founder George Hoffman said. In a phone interview Monday, Hoffman said the group would need volunteers to help with ongoing water quality monitoring and seasonal beach cleanups. Hoffman also said Harbor Day is intended to increase recognition of how important the local coastline is to community life.

“The history of the harbor is intertwined with the history of Setauket,” he said.

Hoffman said Setauket Harbor Task Force members met this summer with Brookhaven Town officials, who said, “They will come up with a plan to dredge the pond in Setauket Harbor Park.
It is clogged with sediment.”

Hoffman also said the task force has applied for 501c3 designation as a nonprofit, and that the application will be approved in a month or two.

The task force will then apply for federal and state grants to fund harbor cleanup, he said.

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A night heron sits at Frank Melville Memorial Park. Photo from Beverly Tyler

By Beverly C. Tyler

The intersection of Main Street and Old Field Road in Setauket marks the entrance to the Frank Melville Memorial Park. The horseshoe-shaped park, completed in 1937 includes extensive plantings, a simulated gristmill, a magnificent view of Conscience Bay and the cottage of the last Setauket miller Everett Hawkins. From the park there is an entrance to the Frank Melville Memorial Foundation Sanctuary grounds with its extensive nature paths.

This past month the park and sanctuary suffered a great deal of damage from the storm that devastated a narrow area on the North Shore from Smithtown to Port Jefferson. The park has worked hard to clear debris and bring the park back to its beautiful condition. Please explore the park this month and consider becoming a member of the Friends of the Park. 

The Setauket Millpond was a center of commerce for the community from the time it was settled in 1655 until early in the 20th century. It is easy to imagine almost any time in Setauket history while in the park. Looking out over the milldam, Conscience Bay reflects the 8,000 years the Native Americans lived here before the English settlers came to Setauket. The mill tells the story of the farmer grinding grain in the 1700s. The restored barn remembers the horse “Smokey” and speaks of a 19th-century horse and carriage. The stone bridge relates how an immigrant great-grandson came to Setauket and gave it an image of the countryside of rural England and Europe with a park.

Just after dawn the Setauket Mill Pond shimmers with morning mist and reflects the early morning sky and the trees that partly surround it. Walking along the path in the Frank Melville Memorial Park, the only sounds, except for the occasional car going by, are the birds in the trees and the ducks in the pond. They contrast with the greens, browns and grays of early morning. The contemplative surroundings start the day with the beauty of God’s creation and give perspective to the rest of the day.

The following prose was written by the author:

Birdsong
Spring, the park at morning.
Woodpeckers rat-a-tat, the woosh of wings — Canadian geese, a soft grouse call is heard.
Birdsong, first near and then far, across the pond.
Birdsong left and right.
A gentle breeze turns the pond to silver, moving patterns of dark and light.
The background sound of water flowing over the milldam and into the bay.
Pairs of mallards glide slowly across the pond.
The trumpet call of geese announces flight as they rise from the pond and fly across the milldam, across the march and into the bay.
Trees surround the pond with patterns of greens of every shade.
Dark evergreens and climbing vines.
Bright green beech and silver-green sycamore.
Patches of white dogwood adding depth and contrast.
A heron glides effortlessly across the surface of the pond, rises and disappears into the cover of a black birch tree.
I am overwhelmed by gentle sounds and contrasting scenery, by muted colors in every shade and texture.
Blue-white sky and blue-green water.

Beverly Tyler is the Three Village Historical Society historian.

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Empty canvas
Between Aug. 21 at 4 p.m. and Aug. 30 at 5:45 p.m., an unknown person used spray paint to make graffiti on the walls of an unoccupied building on Hallock Avenue in Port Jefferson Station.

Cheap Jeep owner
On Aug. 26 at 3:30 p.m., a man in a white Jeep took a kayak from the back of another man’s Toyota truck. Police said the incident took place on Nesconset Highway in Port Jefferson Station.

Path to prison
A 32-year-old man from Port Jefferson Station was arrested on North Bicycle Path for grand larceny on Aug. 24, after police said he stole a credit card and made purchases at a Pathmark.

Conditioned to steal
Someone stole cash from a restaurant on Echo Avenue in Sound Beach between Aug. 25 at 10 p.m. and Aug. 26 at 7 a.m. The person climbed into the restaurant by removing an air conditioning unit from a window.

Please take your receipt
Police arrested a 53-year-old Calverton woman on Aug. 26 on Middle Country Road in Selden. Police said last year she found a receipt at a K-Mart, retrieved the listed items from around the store and pretended to return them, fraudulently receiving cash in exchange.

All-terrain thieves
Between Aug. 26 and 28, someone entered a residence on Friendship Drive in Rocky Point and took three all-terrain vehicles. Police said more than one thief was involved in the incident.

I saw it on television
Police said between Aug. 26 and 27 an unidentified person entered another individual’s house on 3rd Avenue in Rocky Point and stole a television.

License to repeat
A 57-year-old Coram man was arrested at Route 25A and West Gate Drive in Mount Sinai for driving with a suspended license on Aug. 27. Police said the man, who was driving a 1988 Oldsmobile Cutlass, has had his license suspended 10 times before.

Feetgum
Police said an unknown man kicked in a fence on Aug. 30 at a residence on Sweetgum Lane in Miller Place.

Meat me in prison
A 20-year-old man from Selden was arrested for reckless endangerment on Aug. 27 at 2:00 a.m., near Adirondack Avenue in Selden. Police said he had an altercation with a friend and threw a bottle of Windex and a bottle of meat marinade, which broke when it hit the floor. No one was injured.

Sleeping while intoxicated
On Aug. 27 at 1:37 a.m., police arrested a 21-year-old man from East Setauket for operating a motor vehicle while impaired by drugs. He was observed sleeping in the driver’s seat of a 2013 Toyota in Mount Sinai. Police said the man wasn’t steady on his feet and failed a sobriety test.

School of crime
Police arrested a 55-year-old man from Port Jefferson Station for criminal mischief. Authorities said he took a hammer and smashed the front passenger headlight and the windshield of a 2009 Suzuki SX4 on School Drive on Aug. 28 at 3:40 a.m.

Dozing driver
Police arrested a 23-year-old man from South Setauket on Aug. 29 for driving while ability impaired by drugs. The man was driving a 2001 Mitsubishi Galant down Route 25A in Centereach and passed out behind the wheel while waiting at a traffic light.

Hungry for cash
An unknown person shattered the glass on the front door of a restaurant on Middle Country Road in Centereach and broke into the building between Aug. 29 and 30. The individual stole cash and the cash box.

Between Aug. 27 at 10 p.m. and Aug. 28 at 6:45 a.m., an unidentified person broke into a restaurant on Route 25A in Miller Place. Police said the suspect broke the glass of the building’s front door and stole cash.

Simple physics
On the morning of Aug. 30, an unknown person damaged the rear passenger window on a 2010 Nissan. Police said the vehicle was damaged on Newton Avenue in Selden.

Give me Liberty
On Aug. 30 at 2:30 a.m. an unidentified person entered another person’s 2002 Ford Flex on Liberty Drive in Centereach and stole an iPod.

Dirty DWI
On Aug. 30 at 12:15 a.m., police arrested a 24-year-old man from Rocky Point for driving while intoxicated. Police said he was driving an unregistered Honda dirt bike on Noah’s Path in Rocky Point and that he was involved in a crash. It was not clear if anyone was hurt.

Stick ’em up
Suffolk County police arrested a 24-year-old man from Centereach in Setauket-East Setauket and charged him with first-degree robbery, burglary and seventh-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance. Police said that the man displayed a gun and stole cash and lotto tickets from OK Petroleum fuel station on Middle Country Road in Centereach on Aug. 23 at 2:35 a.m. Before that, he entered the bathroom of another gas station, BP fuel, using burglar’s tools, but he didn’t take anything. He was arrested on Aug. 27 at 3:43 p.m. when he was stopped at the parking lot in Home Depot on Pond Path in South Setauket, where cops found him with prescription drugs without a prescription.

Shopaholic stopped
A 48-year-old woman from Central Islip was arrested in Setauket-East Setauket on Aug. 26 and charged with petit larceny. Police said the woman took a gift bag, trading cards, Kool-Aid, board games and a bath rug and fled a Target on Pond Path. She was arrested at 4:11 p.m.

Lights out
Police arrested a 29-year-old man from Setauket and charged him with first-degree driving while intoxicated. Cops said that on Aug. 26 at 11 a.m., the man was driving a 2003 Jeep SUV westbound on Route 25A in Setauket and was pulled over because his rear taillight was out.

Chump change taken
An unknown person took change from a 1996 Honda on Sycamore Lane in Stony Brook, sometime between 3  and 11:30 a.m. on Aug. 29. There have been no arrests.

Identity stolen
Someone reported an incident of identity theft from Saddler Lane in Stony Brook on Aug. 29. The person told police that someone made two Internet purchases and an ATM withdrawal from the individual’s account between 8:50 and 9:01 a.m. on Aug. 25.

Wallet woes
A woman told police that someone removed cash from her wallet in her purse while at the Three Village Inn on Main Street in Stony Brook. Cops said the incident occurred sometime between 4:50 p.m. on Aug. 28 and noon on Aug. 29. There have been no arrests.

Shoot!
Someone took two camera lenses, a Nikon camera and assorted gift cards from a 2014 Acura MDX on Blinker Light Road in Stony Brook between 6 p.m. on Aug. 26 and 10 a.m. on Aug. 27. There have been no arrests.

Phone, change stolen
Someone entered an unlocked Honda on Driftwood Lane in Setauket-East Setauket and took a Verizon cell phone and change. The incident happened between Aug. 28 at 10 p.m. and Aug. 29 at 6 a.m.

Who’s keeping score?
Someone took a metal scoring table with steps and a bench from Ward Melville High School on Old Town Road in Setauket-East Setauket sometime between Aug. 16 and Aug. 27. There have been no arrests.

Police search for store thief
Suffolk County police are seeking the public’s help in identifying and locating a woman who stole items from a Commack store last month.
Police said a woman stole Chanel and Gucci perfume bottles from Ulta, located at 78 Veterans Memorial Highway, on July 30, at about 2:15 p.m. The perfumes had a combined value of approximately $750.
Police described the woman as dark skinned, with long black hair, approximately 5 feet 3 inches tall and wearing a blue T-shirt and jeans.
Suffolk County Crime Stoppers offers a cash reward of up to $5,000 for information that leads to an arrest. Anyone with information about this crime is asked to call anonymously to Crime Stoppers at 1-800-220-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.

Sheet out of luck
Suffolk County police arrested a 19-year-old Smithtown woman on Aug. 29 at the Smith Haven Mall and charged her with three counts of petit larceny. Cops said on June 17 and on June 21, she stole a sheet set and flat iron from T.J. Maxx on East Jericho Turnpike and both times returned them to the front desk for store credit. Police nabbed her on Aug. 29 at about 2 p.m. when she took various men’s Polo undergarments from Macy’s. She was arrested at about 2:30 p.m.

U-Gone
Someone rented a 2002 U-Haul trailer from a Smithtown location on Nesconset Highway and didn’t return the vehicle. Police said the incident occurred between June 19 and Aug. 28.

Buzz off
A woman told police that someone was leaving her harassing voicemails. The incident, reported on East Main Street in Smithtown on Aug. 28, occurred between the 27th at 9 a.m. and the 28th at 7:30 p.m.

Items taken
Someone stole items from the room of a nursing home on Route 25A in Smithtown sometime between Aug. 26 at 6 and 10 a.m. There have been no arrests.

Gadgets grabbed
Someone snagged a GPS and a DVD/CD player from a 2004 Dodge Ram 1500 pickup truck on Lancelot Court in St. James sometime on Aug. 24 at 10 p.m. and Aug. 29 at 9 a.m. There have been no arrests.

Door damaged
Someone keyed the front doors of a 1999 GMS on Lincoln Avenue in Kings Park, sometime between Aug. 28 at 3 p.m. and Aug. 29 at noon. There have been no arrests.

Laptop, smash-top
Someone smashed the rear passenger window of a 2002 Chevrolet TrailBlazer on Nesconset Highway and stole a laptop and two credit cards sometime on Aug. 27 between 5 and 11:10 p.m.

Drugs galore
Two 25-year-old men from Huntington were arrested on the corner of West 4th Street and 3rd Avenue in Huntington Station on Aug. 29 at 7 p.m. One man was charged with possession of marijuana, and the other man was charged with seventh-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, for possessing prescription pills without a prescription.

Blurred lines
A 47-year-old Huntington man was arrested for driving while intoxicated driving westbound on Fairmount Street in Huntington, on Aug. 29 at about 3 a.m. He was driving a 2012 white Mercedes and was observed swerving outside the travel lanes.

Boats and woes
A unknown person stole a watch, laptop, television, toaster, sunglasses and earrings from a boat docked at Knutson Marine in Halesite. The incident was reported on Aug. 29 at 6 p.m.

Life’s a beach
A wallet was stolen from a doorless and topless 1998 Jeep parked at Crab Meadow Beach in Northport on Aug. 28. The wallet contained cash, a driver’s license and a debit card.

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Experts have blamed nitrogen runoff for problems of hypoxia and dangerous algae blooms in coastal waters. File photo from Angelo Peluso

By Angelo Peluso

September marks the beginning of meteorological autumn. It is a time when we bid farewell to summer and embrace the magnificence of the fall migratory run of local game fish.

This is a time eagerly awaited by all Long Island anglers, as amassing baitfish and pursuing game fish move into high gear. The stage has been set all around Long Island for the grandest spectacle of the fishing season. Although no place is more representative of this activity than the fabled waters of Montauk Point and the beaches of the South Shore, the open Long Island Sound and the beaches of the North Shore can give anglers a solid opportunity at some terrific fall action.

While North Shore fishing may not be as frenzied, concentrated or sustained as it is at the end of Long Island, there is, nonetheless, some fine fishing to be had for those who put in the time and are willing to move about to find fish.

Angler Craig Scail with a fine brace of local, Long Island Sound black sea bass. Photo from Angelo Peluso
Angler Craig Scail with a fine brace of local, Long Island Sound black sea bass. Photo from Angelo Peluso

A decade or so ago the North Shore of Long Island would boast respectable spring and early fall runs of striped bass. Conditions related to cyclical weather changes, baitfish movement and the migratory patterns and behaviors of game fish, most notably striped bass, have somewhat altered the landscape of the fall run in the area of the central Long Island Sound. It seems as if the last half dozen years or so have brought stronger spring fishing than prolonged fall runs, especially those runs that occur close to the beaches, whereas the fall run would often last a few weeks. Now, some of the best late-season inshore bass fishing can often be measured in days, not weeks. The exception to this is that whatever bass remain in the area congregate off many of the deep-water drop-offs to bulk up on bait that follows the same path. At this time of year, diamond jigging is king.

But all is not lost to the shore-bound angler.

One of the keys to scoring bass and big blues from September to the end of the season is mobility. A body in motion should stay in motion until such time as fish are located. Too many anglers spend too much time remaining stagnant, waiting for the fish. There are many time-tested spots where the probabilities are high that fish will move in as certain phases of the tide or current movement, so spend time fishing those locations.

Obviously, these situations vary with the seasons, but time on the water and consistent previous successes are good barometers of future potential. That said, from September until the end of the season, any of the central Long Island beaches from those in and around the Huntington Harbor/Eatons Neck area, out to the beaches of the North Fork, can turn on any given day with bass headed east and close to the edges of the surf line. Many of the bass that linger west of Huntington in Nassau County tend to move west and back out into the New York Bight, but those movements are not always easy to predict as they are on the South Shore, where fish move east to west. Bass and some large blues can be seen in the Sound moving both east and west, so who knows how the fish decide to leave the Sound.

That movement, though, argues for the angler to remain in motion and to keep tabs on the whereabouts of fall bait. While not all parts of the Sound enjoy prolific concentrations of bait throughout the season, the cooling down of water temperatures and the shortened hours of daylight in September will stimulate various baits to amass into large rafts. Sand eels, spearing, bay anchovies and white bait like finger mullet will motivate the bass and blues. Most bait will be found along deep-water drops, moving out from the harbors or cruising the surf line. All scenarios present productive fishing opportunities.

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File photo

It’s the start of the school season, and that should signal us to be a little more wary behind the wheel.

With some schools already in session and some schools opening soon, we are urging drivers who are rushing to and fro to bring their patience and common sense with them.

Just this week in Smithtown, a police checkpoint netted 11 individuals and charged them with DWI — most of those Smithtown residents. It’s a scary number.

Over in Cold Spring Harbor, on Woodbury Road, an elderly woman died after crashing into the woods on Friday evening.

With this kind of troubling traffic safety news becoming the norm lately, we all need to step up our defensive driving game instead of stepping on the gas.

When on the road, come to a full stop at a stop sign, not a rolling stop. Always stop behind a school bus with its lights on — a resident told us this week that she routinely witnesses cars blowing past buses that are stopped. Those are children that could potentially be put at risk. And it goes without saying that we should take extra precautions in school speed zones.

The list goes on. Always signal before merging into a lane. And if you’re in the wrong lane, don’t try to cut across multiple lanes, especially on major thoroughfares. Obey crosswalks — we can’t tell you how many times drives ignore them.

Following the rules of the road goes a long way in keeping our families safe. Let’s all be a little more courteous and careful behind the wheel.

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Brookhaven Town wants to limit the number of cars allowed per house. Photo by Elana Glowatz

Long Island is infamous for its numerous layers of government, and sometimes those layers try to legislate too much of our lives.

An underlying misconception about what truly affects “quality of life” is forcing our elected officials to pitch laws that are more knee-jerk reactions and overregulation than appropriate responses. We are seeing it in several North Shore communities, like in Brookhaven Town this week.

As part of the town’s fight against overcrowded and illegal rental houses — many of them inhabited by students in the neighborhoods around Stony Brook University — officials want to limit the number of allowed vehicles per bedroom in a house, to help them track the number of people living in a home.

But elected leaders are reacting based upon unrealistic expectations of what “quality of life” should mean to the average Long Islander.

Telling a homeowner how many vehicles they can have, based on the number of bedrooms in a home, is drawing a dangerous line in the sand. What would that do to the basic Brookhaven nuclear family with four older kids, sharing two bedrooms? What would that do to the average car collector? Let’s also not forget about a different — but relevant — issue on Long Island: It’s difficult to even get around out here without a vehicle because of shoddy public transportation. And now we are going to limit the number of cars a family home can possess?

There are already provisions in place to penalize irresponsible neighbors who make too much noise, don’t properly dispose of trash or park on lawns — true quality of life issues. Cracking down on vehicle ownership is beyond the pale, especially if everyone is parked legally. If we cannot use existing provisions to track or police rentals, perhaps they are not enough of a nuisance for us to get involved.

Neighborhoods change. People build. People leave. New people with new personalities come in. These things happen, and it isn’t the job of our county or town officials to make regulations in an attempt to control that.

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