A Front Street restaurant owner in Greenport who was served with a code enforcement violation this week for a table she has kept outside her business for six years — offering free clothing, goods and household items — is defying the order.

“It’s just not something I’m going to back down on,” she told the Sun. “They poked the wrong bear.”

What began as a pandemic workaround has, over time, evolved into a grassroots exchange network, one that owner Sharon Sailor now refuses to dismantle, even under threat of fines.

The notice warns that if the table is not removed within 10 days, fines could escalate quickly, beginning at “$500 to $1,500 for a first violation, $1,000 to $2,500 for a second violation, and $1,500 to $5,000 for a third and each subsequent day of violation.”

Sailor, the co-owner of Front St. Station, is incensed.

“So we can take it all the way to court,” she said. “I’m not afraid of going to court. You want to fine me? I’ll start a GoFundMe. I’ve already got people that are writing to the mayor.”

This week, Sailor took to Facebook to air her grievances with the village, writing ‘see photos of what is ‘acceptable’ in the village,’ above images of people passed out on or near her property, as well as a broken down vehicle owned by a Southold town official, which sat outside the Floyd Memorial Library for nearly a year, despite numerous complaints, before being towed away this week.

‘Not a Brooklyn street corner’

Sailor, who has run the restaurant for 13 years, said that Village Mayor Kevin Stuessi emailed her once about the table, “and I ripped into him, like, ‘I’m not moving the table.’”

Stuessi did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the code enforcement letter or Sailor’s intent to defy the village and keep the table operating where it stands.

She said a previous village code enforcement officer also once approached her about the table, telling her that ‘people want you to move it to the back [of the restaurant], but I looked it up, and that’s your property.”

The code enforcement action follows complaints, including some from fellow business owners in the village’s commercial district. One is said to have scoffed that Front St. “is not a Brooklyn street corner.”

The free stuff table started, according to Sailor, when her sister was moving and local charities “wouldn’t take anything because of Covid.” So she and her father put her sister’s leftover belongings on the table, “and the next day they were gone.”

Soon, “people started contacting me… and then it took on a life of its own,” she said. Donations began arriving from across the community, often brand-new items. One day, a woman handed over goods and said that “it was all brand new stuff from the Christmas Tree Shop.” The woman suggested to Sailor that “if it doesn’t go, just throw it out.”

“Why is new stuff going in the garbage?” Sailor recalled thinking. “We’re just so wasteful.” Over six years, she estimates she has “re-homed” tens of thousands of items.

‘We’re a community’

The longtime co-owner of Front Street Station acknowledges the tension at the heart of her position: she is deeply frustrated by people congregating in the Adams Street parking lot behind her restaurant — drinking, urinating and creating ongoing quality-of-life issues — yet feels an obligation not to turn her back on them.

“We’re a community,” she said. “I’m a human… I don’t want to see them cold or die or whatever. I’m not gonna not call [emergency services] for them when they need it.”

At the same time, she insists it is the responsibility of the village and Southold police to address the ongoing issues that she and other business owners along Front Street have complained about for years.

“It’s not my job to fix it.”

“They poked the wrong bear.” – Sharon Sailor

But as long as people are there, she said she will continue to do what she can, offering food, clothing and basic necessities. No item, it seems, no matter how random, gets discarded.

Yesterday, the table featured a tea cup, a beer glass, a twist-tied plastic bag of breakfast cereal, a bottle of seltzer, some old frying pans and a few other items. Three pairs of men’s pants dropped off in an old Brooks Brothers shopping bag beside the table yesterday were claimed within a half hour.

Over time, the table has also taken on an unexpected historical dimension. Sailor said she once found “a marriage license from the 1800s that was from upstate, that somebody just put out there, that we got up to the historical society up that way.”

A set of old Polish Polka albums was donated to the Polish Hall in Riverhead. A 1941 Christmas card from a local family was donated to the Mattituck Laurel Historical Society.

“There was just so much history… being thrown away,” Sailor said.

She recalled putting out a piñata she assumed no one would want, only to be stopped later by a grateful mother, who said her daughter was having a birthday party “and we didn’t know where to get a piñata, and I saw it on your table.”

Another day, a group of crystal bowls, including punch bowls and tureens, arrived and quickly found new homes.

Sailor insists the table fills a real need.

“There’s people that can’t give that can’t do there’s kids that don’t have costumes, right? There’s kids that can’t give parents a present … parents who can’t give kids a present, right? There’s people who don’t have diapers, who don’t have baby clothes,” she said.

An even-handed tone

Complicating the issue is Greenport’s uneven recent history with code enforcement.

Former code enforcement officer Alex Bolanos — fired following an extended medical leave in 2024 — is now suing the village and its mayor for wrongful termination and has met with Suffolk County prosecutors over allegations the mayor gave favorable treatment to some businesses while targeting others. Restaurateur Zach Erdem is also suing the mayor and the village in federal court over enforcement at his restaurant in 2024 that Bolanos, then the village code enforcement officer, now says was targeted. Court records show the sides in the Erdem lawsuit are currently in settlement talks.

During Bolanos’ leave, the position went unfilled, prompting village officials to urge the mayor to hire a replacement and staff up the village building department amid complaints that applications were stalled and major projects, including a renovation of the Greenporter Hotel, were withdrawn in frustration. The village currently has one part-time code enforcement officer.

Richard Vandenburgh, president of the Greenport BID, who recently suggested installing temporary portable surveillance cameras in the Adams Street parking lot to deter loitering, struck an even-handed tone about Sailor’s table.

He acknowledged both Sailor’s intentions and the concerns of other business owners, saying he believes “she’s right” in spirit, while noting that some see the table as contributing to broader issues involving sidewalk use and the commercial district. He said the BID is trying to balance community goodwill with member complaints and enforcement realities.

‘A unique situation’

Village Board member Mary Bess Phillips expressed sympathy, noting that many of the sandwich boards that dot Front St. in warm weather are not code compliant.

“I have mixed feelings about it, partly because I believe part of the table is on her own property,” Phillips said. “The other thing is — you’d be amazed at how many people put stuff there and people take stuff from it. I mean, it’s like a recycling table, because there’s no fee involved in it.

“It’s not like the Op Shop where they’re earning any money off of it or a yard sale. It’s just free stuff. And what’s the difference from that and somebody putting it out on the curb in front of their house?”

Village Board member Julia Robins said she sympathizes with Sailor and plans to reach out to code enforcement.

“It’s obviously a little bit of unique situation, which has been allowed to go on for six years, by the way, so that bothers me,” Robins said. “It doesn’t fit the accessory uses for a restaurant, you know, but it doesn’t sort of fit anything … So technically, yeah, they can fine her. But I understand her argument too.

“She’s a good person,” Robins added. “She’s done a lot of good for the community. Her and her son, Paul Drum, they have that whole foundation that does a lot of good things. So her heart’s in the right place. She’s been here a long time. I just, I don’t like to see the village cracking down on her. And I’ll call the building inspector see if they can work something out with her.”

One business owner a few doors up the road from Front Street Station who spoke to the Sun was torn.

“I want her to continue to be able to do good for people who need things,” he said. “But at the same time, we don’t want to encourage, you know, people who need things being on the street.”