T-Mobile drops suit against Lindenhurst

A cellular phone company that sued Lindenhurst after trustees denied its application to put a group of antennas on top of a building in the village has dropped its lawsuit.

“They gave up the ghost,” village attorney Gerard Glass said. “This worked out well for the village and the neighbors.”

T-Mobile had sought to install the antennas on the roof of a commercial storage facility at 180 S. Travis St., citing the need to strengthen its signal in the area.

The company sued in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York in July 2010 to force the village to issue the necessary permits. The village had objected to the antennas on aesthetic and other grounds.

Village officials negotiated an agreement with the South Travis Street property owner, trading concessions related to the storage facility for covenant restrictions forbidding cellular antennas on the property.

“We are disappointed for the thousands of customers who will not benefit from this new installation,” T-Mobile spokesman Eric Engen said in a statement emailed Monday.

In August, the company withdrew an application to put antennas at a Montauk Highway building.

Neighbors complained they would have been too close to their homes, village administrator Shawn Cullinane said at the time.