Illegal Atlantic Beach cabanas approved

Despite objections from some residents, the Hempstead Town Board of Appeals has retroactively approved a number of structures that were illegally erected over several decades at the private, 14-acre Atlantic Beach Club in Atlantic Beach.

The board voted last week to grant the members-only club's requests to use the existing clubhouse for public assembly and amusement, and to continue to use two trailers as offices and to maintain two storage containers. They also retroactively granted variances for off-street parking and let the club keep several cabanas with additions that are taller and larger than usually permitted.

Board member Katuria D'Amato, a club member and wife of former Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, and board counsel Arthur Nastre, who previously represented the club, recused themselves from the case.

"ABC [Atlantic Beach Club] is pleased with the outcome of these cases," said Christian Browne on Tuesday, the Garden City attorney who represented the club and resigned as an appeals board member in November.

About a half-dozen neighbors at a hearing on March 6 said they worried that approving the requests would encourage similar cases of ignoring zoning ordinances.

Alan Kaye, president of the Atlantic Beach Civic Association, who spoke against the club at the hearing, said approving petitions for work done in the past could set a risky precedent.

"The community may not be as happy as we would have been perhaps if they had not granted it," Kaye said. "We just don't want to see any abuse of the variances and the operation of the club. We want to keep the area as a pristine beach community."

Atlantic Beach Estates resident Alan Rosenbloom said he was puzzled by the board's decision. "It seems to me that they exhibited a complete disregard of anything that was said at the hearing," Rosenbloom said. "This seems to me like a David and Goliath thing, and we just got walked over."