Last Friday, May 1, around eight a.m., Springs resident Rian White woke up to find 19 men in his backyard, throwing everything in it into a Dumpster and crushing it.
After a seven-year battle with East Hampton Town and several of his neighbors over the unsightly state of his messy yard—including a conviction for littering on his own property earlier this year in East Hampton Town Justice Court and a $5,000 fine—the East Hampton Town Board finally sent an outside contractor to Mr. White’s property to clear the junk that Mr. White had refused to remove.
Mr. White said he considered the collection a life’s worth of treasure.
“I feel like a wreck, like my civil rights were just trampled all over,” said Mr. White. “They took my kayak and paddles. They took my lawn furniture and my mother’s dining room table. They took everything, everything. They even took the hot dog man, which was deemed legal, remember? And they put it in the back of a garbage truck and crushed it.”
One count against Mr. White during his January trial concerned a 6-foot-tall hot dog statue that he had on his lawn. The jury found him not guilty of having a “non-conforming sign” on his property.
In April, town officials sent a certified letter to Mr. White warning him that he had 10 days before a contractor would arrive to clear out his property.
The letter warned that the contractor would “effect a clearing on any items on his property that have been deemed dangerous to the public health safety and welfare.”
The letter also said that town code enforcement officers had visited Mr. White’s property on 35 occasions over the last seven years and given him many opportunities to clean up.
“There was nothing saying they were going to take everything I own,” Mr. White said.
The contractors, Two Brothers Carting, crushed his Hobie Catamaran, his 1965 Oldsmobile, 1969 Ford Galaxy and 1979 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia, a 1908 stove rescued from the Bell estate, his dog’s bed, a duck decoy and firewood.
He was able to salvage his Vespa, his dive gear, and some clam shells from when he won the Town Trustees’ giant clam contest.
“I have an hour worth of footage of the whole thing happening,” Mr. White said. He said he had received legal advice to sue everyone on the Town Board and the town attorney.
“What happened to me,” Mr. White said, “could happen to everybody.”
I have many friends and we don't like green lawns.
But that s costly... he could have sold the old cars to collectors and built the fence with that money. and wow a stove from 1908 should not have been in the yard to begin with. That is antique... I'm a pack rat but tend to keep things stored up. next time Mr. White ...more should think about that.
Didn't think so.
What if this collection of crap caught fire, would all of you defenders be happy to see firemen get hurt doing thier job on this infested property?
This wacko was told to clean up or we'll do it for you plnety of times, don't expect me to feel bad for someone too lazy to clean up after themselves.
Bottom line, his yard was a mess, but I don't think the action was warranted in its entirety.
There was alot of junk, but there was also stuff. One mans junk is another mans stuff, and vice versa.
If you want to live in a place where the law is not followed to the letter just because someone is "different", then by all means, support the local gov't on this issue. But, do you really want to live in a place where the local gov't can come down on someone like this with NO RESTRAINT just because he is deemed "weird"? (I like weird people, by the way. Normal folks are boring.)
So, put up a hedge. ...more You knew who you were moving in next to.
The thing is, the TOWN COURTS correctly said that they only had the power to levy fines and sentance the man to jail time. The Town BOARD overstepped when they cleared out this man's yard. A Kayak? BBQ? Firewood? THE FREAKIN' HOT DOG MAN WRAPPED IN A FLAG????
Only in the Hamptons can someone's private property be taken away WITHOUT A COURT ORDER OR WARRANT. And maybe La Jolla. This is a total violation of basic private property rights, and the TOEH won't have a leg to stand on when this hits the courts.
I sincerely hope they get sued for all they're worth. Oh wait, the town has NO money. Damn.