Residents of North Fork, a formerly placid Long Island enclave, say they’re tired of a fresh inflow of post-pandemic visitors who have disrupted their once tranquil community.
With over 60 wineries, various breweries and distilleries, and private fly fishing ranches, the region has long been known as Long Island’s Wine Country.
Following the epidemic, however, areas of the peninsula including as Greenport, Southold, Mattituck, and Cutchogue have seen a massive inflow of noisy visitors who have ruined the once-quaint region with their hard partying.
According to residents, so-called ‘cityiots’ have barged into town, loudly partying in their Airbnbs, getting wasted at local vineyards and causing heavy traffic when they extend their stays at local mansions, the New York Post reported.
Although the idyllic location has long been a popular getaway spot, in recent years residents say it has attracted a larger, younger crowd who have overstayed their welcome.
‘Years ago (visitors) were like osprey birds; they were pretty quiet and you would just see them down by the water over the summer,’ 45-year-old Mattituck resident Ben Heins told the Post. ‘But now they’re like seagulls; they’re all over the place and they crap on everything.’
Resident’s say the 30-mile long peninsula has now become the new Hamptons, the popular seaside community known as a summer destination for the rich and famous located on Long Island’s South Fork.
‘It’s become the Hamptons 2.0,’ Cutchogue Civic Association member Steve Starroff told the Post. ‘It feels like an invasion now, and it wasn’t like this 10 years ago.’
What has upset residents the most-other than the overcrowding, the traffic and overall rowdiness is the lack of regard for town residents and their long-held customs.
‘There’s a lack of respect,’ Greenport firefighter Bob Corwin told The Post. ‘(New arrivals) say they love it here, but want to change everything about the place.’
That includes pushing residents out of grocery stores on the weekends and the reluctance to pullover to allow emergency vehicles, including firetrucks, pass when out on a call, Corwin told the post.
Residents say there is no reprieve from the tourists, who years ago used to leave after Labor Day but are now sticking around.
We had something called “tumbleweed Tuesday,” which is when all the locals would go out on the town and celebrate the tourists leaving — restaurants would even have specials and deals,’ Starroff said. ‘But we haven’t had ‘tumbleweed Tuesday’ for a few years now because everybody seems to be sticking around.’
And even worse for some residents is the slew of new tawdy homes being built by newcomers that look out of place, local beef farm runner and owner of McCall Wines, Brewster McCall said.
‘They look like garbage,’ he told the Post of the ‘McMansions from the Hamptons that max out their lot and put up a wall between them and the neighbors.’
The post-pandemic boom also affected the Hamptons, where longtime residents have previously expressed frustration with the rise in real estate, dining and transportation costs.
Last March locals complained about the wave of rich residents ‘ruining the Hamptons’
‘There’s so much money now it’s nauseating. I’m a one-percenter. But I bear no resemblance to these people,’ one woman, who bought her Amagansett home in 1991, told Vanity Fair last summer.
‘Everyone with money is here. If I weren’t here already, I wouldn’t come now. The conspicuous consumption is just gross.’