This is a follow up to our previous post "Paul McCartney Arrested in the Hamptons???". Several people have commented and questioned the veracity of the story. I don't blame them. It seems unbelievable that a village that depends on the tourist trade and summer visitors and touts itself as an international vacation nirvana up there with the French Riviera would enact such an obviously xenophobic law. But I assure you it is true. I watched as an East Hampton Village Police Sergeant very cordially explained the law to my friend as he wrote him up a ticket for being an unlicensed driver even though his driving license issued in a friendly european country was up to date. Even though the policeman admitted the ludicrous nature of the law he said it was a law and he was sworn to enforce it.
He recounted several stories of europeans arrested and ticketed for violating the aforesaid restriction on driving. He especially got a kick out of one story: a wealthy englishman who having rented a beachfront home for over a hundred thousand dollars flew into Kennedy picked up his $1000 a week Mercedes rental and drove into East Hampton Village to pick up the house keys from the agency whereupon he was stopped by the police and issued a ticket for unlicensed driving. Now the officer didn't say why the guy was stopped originally. The police don't lie in wait in some kind of rental agency speed trap hoping to overhear a foreign accent and follow them out to their cars. I don't think?.
Foreign Nationals can drive in the villages if they get US issued licenses. A pretty impractical solution. Is this legal? Would it hold up in a higher court if challenged? I don't know. I assume the US must have some kind of treaties about driver privileges between allies but I don't know for sure. And who is going to pursue it - not the hispanic worker (I suspect it was meant to harass) and not the vacationing european who will either pay the fine and be done with it or skip court and just never come back.
