Biz group grows, scores
'Unified voice' gets louder every day
By Michael White
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In fact, say observers, there's never been anything like the RBA, which has succeeded in reversing more policy proposals than months it's been in operation. The group has used its power and knowledge to effect change as perhaps no other organization has done before.
If not for the RBA, for example, the owner of Baiting Hollow's Cooperage Inn could have found himself in trouble with Riverhead Town for staying open, in the language of a proposed local law, "beyond the normal dining time for dinner."
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The next thing Cooperage Inn owner Jonathan Perkins knew, he and a parade of others were speaking out at Riverhead Town Hall against the proposal, which, they say, was crafted with seemingly no input from people in the food and beverage industry.
"My fear is that if the Riverhead Business Alliance didn't notify us of the changes, that this would have just been passed without any of us knowing," he said at the hearing.
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He also said it should not pass as written.
"I think the Town Board realized at that point that changing the code wasn't the right thing to do," Mr. Perkins said later in an interview. "I guess they're worried about late-night drinking. State law is that you can serve to 4 a.m. What if I want to have a late party that I booked? Are you telling me I can't do that because I live in Riverhead? It's absurd."
The actions of the Town Board at the June 3 hearing, and the parade of businesspeople who spoke, marked the first victory for the RBA.
In the time since, the group has pressured officials into tabling a proposal to charge Route 58 businesses exclusively for a $3.6 million sewer upgrade and, most recently, to delay voting on a resolution that would have turned town parking over to the county courts.
RBA board members say the organization gives a "unified voice" to the business community at Town Hall, much as civic associations do, while lending some muscle to business owners who might not otherwise stand up to local government officials for fear of reprisal in future dealings with the town.
"It's really an avenue to keep businesses informed," said Martin Sendlewski, an architect and the RBA's vice president, "and in the event something comes up that is not business friendly, we would then act on that and get people informed and involved and get them down to Town Hall to have the town rethink things on issues that might not be beneficial to businesses in Riverhead.
"Many business owners don't have time to read the legal ads in the newspaper." Although RBA board members insist the incorporated not-for-profit group is "not a response to local government," they make no bones about saying the town has a bad habit of sticking its nose where it doesn't belong.
Pointing to a recent decision by the town's Planning Board to reject the environmental impact study for a proposed outdoor go-kart track in Calverton, real estate developer Larry Oxman, an RBA board member, noted that three Planning Board members said they believed the track should be indoors.
"That's really up to the developer," said Mr. Oxman, who has been in litigation with the town over the use of his Route 58 property. "If the use is permitted, then it's permitted, and they have to stop this micromanagement and trying to get involved with the design factor. That's not their role. Their role is to make sure the code is followed.
"If they don't want someone to do a sanctioned use, then they must change the codes. But they can't tell someone 'No,' when the code says you can."
Mr. Sendlewski said one of the chief concerns of many business owners and developers in Riverhead is that there are too many shades of gray in the town code. He pointed to the restaurant definitions proposal -- the so-called "bistro law" -- as the latest example of further muddying the waters.
"A lot of times [town officials] don't realize how much of a burden, as far as micromanaging, it is for businesses," he said. "Why should a town board decide how a restaurant or tavern should be run?"
Under the vague and tangled language of the proposed law, a bar or tavern would, among other things, "consist of age restrictions or cover charges for admissions; listening to music; hours of operation which extend beyond the normal dining time for dinner; and snacks, chips, peanuts, finger foods, tapas is ancillary to the principal use of serving and consuming alcoholic beverages."
Say what?
The restaurant portion of the proposed code makes no mention of serving liquor after dinner hours, as the bar and tavern amendment does, leaving room for interpretation when it comes to enforcement. Many restaurants keep their bars open until about midnight, usually two hours after they stop serving dinner.
Others at the June meeting pointed out that the code was not only confusing and subjective, but at times seemed as if it could put businesses in violation of state law altogether, such as the 50-seat and 750-square-foot maximums suggested for a bistro.
"The 750 I believe comes from the state code about ingress and egress," said Charles Cuddy, a lawyer who spoke at the Town Board meeting ahead of the RBA members. "Each occupant gets 15 square feet times 50 is 750 but that's not the maximum, that's the minimum.
"So what you're doing if you cut one foot off that, essentially you'd be violating the state law. The state law says you need 15 square feet for table-and-chair type situations. That, again, is a minimum number."
Mr. Cardinale said the amendments originated in the town attorney's office as a way for the town, moving forward, to know what kind of businesses it was dealing with.
"I understood what they were trying to do, and I'm not faulting them," Mr. Oxman said. "But in their attempt to clarify they were actually making it much more cloudy, murky and unmanageable."
The idea for the RBA emerged over the winter during lunches at a sushi restaurant in East Quogue, where four of the group's current five board members, Mr. Sendlewski, Mr. Oxman, Ray Dickhoff, a local developer, Pat Fedun, owner of Fedun Real Estate, and others met weekly and talked business.
"A lot of the businesses in town, it seemed, got the feeling that Riverhead is not the most business friendly town to do work in," Mr. Sandleweski said. "If you're trying to do work on your property, or get projects approved or whatever, there's a lot of issues or hoops you have to jump through to get things done.
"That's where the idea basically came from."
Within weeks, they had appointed a board and later recruited Jodi Bennett-Giglio -- an outspoken and passionate building code and zoning consultant based in Calverton -- as their president. Then, they started recruiting.
"Our numbers are growing daily," said Ms. Bennett-Giglio, who also owns property on Peconic Avenue downtown. "Everybody is getting very excited about this. People are coming up to me and saying the alliance should create its own party line for the elections. It's really exciting."
Not only has the group received overwhelmingly positive feedback from the business community, she said, town officials have also been receptive.
"The town is also saying, 'We're going to need your help to, not necessarily counteract the environmentalists [over proposed business projects], but to talk about, not just endangered owls, but high-powered jobs," Ms. Bennett-Giglio said.
"I think there may have been some people that were skeptical about it at first," Mr. Sendlewski said during a Tuesday RBA meeting at his Riverhead offices. "But I think when they've seen what the business alliance has done and how they've gotten businesses organized. And quite frankly, the more businesses that join, the stronger the organization will be."
The RBA leaders said that while they have no political ambitions or motivations, they would like to arrange business-oriented debates among those running for elections next year, where only business owners would submit questions to the candidates.
They also plan to use the dues they collect -- $300 or $500 annually, depending on the size of the business -- to rent office space and hire a full-time employee in hopes of establishing a permanent presence in the town. The group currently has one part-time employee on its staff.
As of last week the group had almost 40 members.
Mr. Cardinale said he welcomed the future involvement of the RBA, though he lightheartedly pointed out at a recent work session that some of its more active members and leaders happen to be his political rivals.
"It's a healthy thing when interest groups organize and articulate well their message to the legislative body of the town, just as it's healthy for the civics to do that," he said in an interview. "But make no mistake about it, as with every other group that appears before us representing an interest, they are an interest group. We represent the entire town. We have to balance.
"That's when government gets interesting, when the Town Board or any other legislative body has to balance the interest of two worthy, competing groups, such as, say, business and environmental groups.
"To the extent that [the RBA] can articulate clearly the interests of the business community, that's healthy, and more likely a decision will be more thought out and balanced."
The Cooperage Inn's Mr. Perkins put his thoughts more bluntly: "Worry about the drugs and the prostitution downtown. Not my business."
