Cape May Versus Southampton

The first time I heard of Dan’s Papers of Southampton New York was reading a profile of Curtis Bashaw. Published this past week, the profile of the Cape Resort’s leader, was in depth and well written by the newspaper’s publisher, Dan Rattinier.

If you have not been paying attention, Cape Resorts recently restored Barons Cove in Sag Harbor. A project somewhat similar in scope to the Congress Hall renovation ten years ago.

This week a guest brought me an actual copy of Dan’s Paper. Think of  Dan’s Papers as  Exit Zero’s weekly magazine on steroids. The other article that caught my attention was about the town of Southampton’s dress code ordinances. Dating back to 1954, the possibly antiquated ordinances, put Cape May’s recent pull down of the Speedo ban in perspective.

Southampton Village’s ordinance reads as: ” #82-12: no person shall appear in a public place in said village, clothed or costumed in a bathing suit, except within a distance of 500 feet of a body of water, unless such bathing suit is completely covered with fully opaque outer clothing.”

Unlike towns such as Southampton New York on Long Island, where dress code ordinances are still enforced, Cape May is pretty darn relaxed. Cape May might selectively enforce bicycle ordinances, but Southampton erects webcams on the town square, to catch dress code violators. You read that correctly.

According to Dan’s Papers website, 87 people were identified as dress code violators this summer.

That number was bolstered by the fact the  publisher, along with the Village of Southampton, agreed to post pictures, to Dan’s website, of suspected violators caught on the webcam in the square.

That is, until the webcam was vandalized. In the pristine village of Southampton, someone disabled the town square webcam.

Say what you will about chief gate and bike gate as two of Cape May’s most recent public debacles. At least Cape May doesn’t require Victorian era swimwear. We can in fact laugh at ourselves through the eyes of the Daily Show .

Maybe Cape May could use a watered down version of Southampton Village’s bathing suit cover-up requirement, but that’s not for me to decide. Dan’s Paper makes me want to visit the Hamptons someday. Cape May versus Southampton? More investigation will be required. I hope Dan’s Paper gets the webcam back on line.