Eff the Hamptons

Reason number 5,436,876 that I hate the Hamtpons. Courtesy of one of my fav mags, New York:

Just in time for Labor Day, some residents of Sagaponack (the wealthiest Zip in the world, according to Forbes) are smoldering over plans for a new BBQ joint by Mark Smith and Toni Ross (owners of Nick & Toni’s), opening later this year. Reportedly called Town Line Barbeque, the 80-seater will serve meats slow-cooked in a smoker that will protrude out of the building and that neighbors like Jean Sinenberg are convinced will stink up the area.

“There’s nothing around it to buffer the odor. There’s a golf course directly across the street. Do you like to play golf first thing in the morning smelling barbecue?”

She continues: “They’re talking about running [the smoker] 24/7. They’re a big corporation with six facilities. Are they turning this into a meat-processing plant?” Smith says, “It’s not like I’m reinventing a type of cooking. No one has died from barbecue smoke. These people are reacting to some irrational fear.” Sinenberg counters, “It’s not that I’m against barbecue. I love barbecue.”

***
OH. MY. GOD.

If this showdown were taking place in Manhattan -- ok, the street I grew up in back in Brooklyn -- Ms. Sinenberg would have gotten her Botoxed face sliced for mouthing off at someone trying to handle they bidness.

But a perverse sense of entitlement is layered thicker than cappuccino foam over the residents of the Hamptons. Bottling up every last racist, classist and criminal feeling that would get them killed in the city, Manhattan's ilk oozes into the Hamptons every summer to bask in the glow of bleached teeth, chemical-peeled skin and Prada patent-leather visors.

In the Hamptons, everyone's good time is dictated by how much they can control others' good time. From "light contamination" to "noise pollution," the people of the Hamptons have nothing to do between fundraising and social climbing than to remind everyone, and themselves, that they are in fact in God's promised land.

Case in point: When James' car alarm went off outside a restaurant in Sag Harbor last summer we were confronted by its hostess who huffed: "Sweetie, this is the Hamptons, we don't need car alarms."

With that, I couldn't wait to barrel down Route 27 and back to Manhattan where I scrubbed the white off with me until the wee hours of the morning.

I just hope Ms. Sinenberg has the same luck washing the smell of BBQ away.