The beach mess: Highway Supe says it’s not just Sunset

At 6:30 Tuesday morning, Shelter Island Highway Department employee James Lenzer was cleaning up Crescent Beach in front of the Sunset Beach Hotel.

He’s out every Friday and Monday mornings during the summer, and Tuesdays after long weekends.

The beach looked pristine, with only a stray cigarette butt or two on the sand.

It wasn’t that way 24 hours before, when bottles and trash littered the beach and garbage cans overflowed with discarded food and other debris.

Several residents had complained and caught the ear of Highway Superintendent Jay Card Jr.

Mr. Lenzer was about to start up the “beach rake,” a machine hauled by a small tractor that picks up litter and smooths the sand. He also, when necessary, picks up some trash by hand.

“It is what it is,” Mr. Lenzer said about the state of the beach after long holiday weekends. “But it’s not just Sunset,” he added, pointing west down the shoreline. “It’s the whole beach.”

Mr. Card said that’s the same thing he’s heard from other members of his department. “You can’t just hang this on Sunset,” he said.

Mr. Card spoke with a manager of the hotel Tuesday morning. “They’re going to look at ways they can mitigate some of the problems,” he said.

With the tourist season just about over, plans will be put in place for next year.

“They said they’d have some guys at the end of the night [clean up] the beach and also first thing in the morning,” Mr. Card said.

Another thing Sunset Beach could do, Mr. Lenzer said, was to sweep gravel that comes from the parking lot into the roadway. “That’s dangerous for people riding bicycles,” he said.

Donna King came by, out for her morning walk. “This looks better,” she said. “Yesterday it was horrible.”