Bicycle, Race Event Ban in Town of Southold Goes Into Effect

The policy to ban bicycle and race events during certain blackout dates within the Town of Southold proposed by Town Supervisor Scott Russell will be adopted on Tuesday night.

Russell first proposed the ban during a work session meeting on June 30 to prevent races from taking place between May 1 and October 1.

However, recently the policy was adjusted to change the dates of the ban to June 1 to November 1 after Russell met with Southold Town Police Chief Martin Flatley, who had concerns with having the end date being October 1.

“[October] is still a very busy month here. We didn’t want to be overly restrictive and did want to provide a reasonable timeframe to host events,” Russell said. “[Flatley] believed that allowing events during the month of May was simply more manageable than the month of October.”

The policy with the new blackout dates will go into effect starting tonight.

According to Russell, a total of three applications that were pending will be approved and after that, all bicycle and race events will have to apply for dates from December to May.

The policy will affect several popular events in the area such as the Bike, Boat, Bike event, which usually takes place in June and the Mighty North Fork Triathlon, which usually takes place in July, which will no longer be permitted to take place during those dates.