Town Attorney: Ditch Witch Saved, Beach End RFPs Dumped

The process that would have signaled the food-wagon will be tossed at Thursday's a meeting of the town board, town attorney Robert Connelly has confirmed.

Connelly said the board will reject the requests for proposals that would have awarded concessions for exclusive use of land that had long been used by area food trucks, including the popular Ditch Witch.

The East Hampton Town Board, inundated with emails and calls from residents who didn't want to see the food trucks thrown off town land, held a special meeting on Thursday afternoon to discuss the legitimacy of the RFPs.

The RFPs were evaluated on a 100 point criteria, broken up into three categories: business experience and community ties getting 30 points and the amount of money offered getting 40 points. However, Connelly said the RFP was going to be rejected because the criteria that was used, by the appointed committee, in evaluating the various proposals was different than the criteria that the applicants for the concession agreements received with the RFP. 

However, the attorney said the nature of the food truck business made weighing them on those criteria inconsitent, resulting in RFPs like the one filed by the Ditch Witch being thrown out while the RFP filed buy the Turf Lobster Truck was accepted. Both businesses are essentially kitchens on wheels.

The news broke on Facebook, where the owners of the Ditch Witch, which lost the RFP by three points, had garnered overwhelming support.

Grant Monahan, whose family owns the Ditch Witch, wrote to the more than 1,000 supporters after he received a call from Councilwoman Julia Prince, who had spearheaded the legislation that required bids for food trucks to set up at certain beach ends.

"The town board worked long and hard last night to try and correct the problems with the vending permits, and they did," Monahan told the hundreds of supporters that were inundated the board with emails for a do-over.

"All the bids were dumped [sic], and things are going back to the same laws and regulations as last year. Thank you for all your support!," he said, adding, "But let this be a reminder to what could happen if you don't support your local businesses!"

Lili Adams and the Monahan family have run the Ditch Witch at the East Deck motel side of Ditch Plains for more 17 years.

The "Save the Ditch Witch" page has nearly 1,000 followers just 24 hours after it was set-up, all of whom seemed outraged the town would lease land to out-of-town vendors.

Other food-trucks were at risk, as well. The Bogetti Family set up a page to rally for their hot dog truck, The Beach Dog, on the other side of Ditch Plains. They wrote, "Thank you all so much for all the support. We couldn't have done it without you!"