Zip line owner makes ‘goodwill tour’ to speak to downtown business owners about plans

After East Main Street business owners spoke out against a proposal to build a zip line along the Peconic Riverfront Friday, the Westchester man behind the project visited downtown Riverhead to meet his critics face to face.

On Saturday, Urban Jungle Zip Lines owner John Finnegan, with iPad in hand, visited a number of downtown businesses, including Tweed’s, The Dark Horse Restaurant and Cody’s BBQ & Grill, hoping to educate business owners about his proposal to install a 900-foot zip line nearby and “say hi to the folks so it’s a person with an idea, not just a crazy idea,” Finnegan said Monday.

The proposal will be presented to the Town Board and the public at Thursday’s work session. Finnegan said he will be available after the meeting to answer any questions about the project.

Finnegan said Ed Tuccio of Tweed’s was “not a big fan” of the project, and added, laughing, “though he said he’d be all for it if I built it farther West and zip-lined people over to his other restaurant, Spicy’s.”

Tuccio said he thinks the zip line is a good idea, but thinks it would make a better fit at the Calverton Enterprise Park, Splish Splash or the aquarium.

“There’s a place for it in Riverhead, just not in downtown Riverhead,” he said. “What about the millions spent to improve the Riverfront? You’re not going to be able to park any boats out there with people zipping over head.”

The possibility the zip line could prevent other uses of the Riverfront is the main concern for Cody’s BBQ & Grill manager Vic Prusinowski, a former Riverhead Town Councilman who said the town intentionally widened the board walk to increase foot traffic along the river from the aquarium.

“I don’t want this to interfere with our docks or our walkways because it’s very important for the downtown flow,” he said.

“[Finnegan] told me the engineers have not finished working out how they’re going to keep this thing up, so I don’t even know how they’re going to keep this thing in the air safely. My recommendation to the town board is to get all the details before they decide whether or not to go for it,” Prusinowski said.

Finnegan said he “felt like there was a lot of negative energy,” on his downtown tour Saturday, but singled out Prusinowski as someone who “seemed to be a fan.”

Prusinowski told RiverheadLOCAL he is “keeping an open mind” about the project.

“I’m not saying I’m opposed to it – it could be good for business,” he said, “I think we should have met the guy sooner rather than later and told him he should have started with us downtown before going to the town board, but who says what to who makes no difference to me. The only thing that matters is facts. Is it safe, what’s the liability to the town and does he have enough time to pull it together – which I’m not so sure he does.”

Prusinowski said he believes Finnegan could be running out of time to get necessary approvals to have the project operational this year.

Prusinowski said the deal with town may well require a public hearing before it can move forward. “I told him that whatever he does, he better get it worked out at Thursday’s work session.”

He said he doesn’t believe parking will be an issue, but added the parking district may have a different complaint if Finnegan hopes to end the zip line ride on public parking district property.

“I didn’t see a detailed survey, I was just looking on the screen, but it looked like where he wants to build the end tower is on parking district property,” he said.

A plan provided by Finnegan to RiverheadLOCAL last week depicts construction of a second tower — where the zip line would terminate — in the public parking lot just west of McDermott Avenue.

The parking lot is in the Riverhead Parking District and parking district members expressed opposition to the plan last week. See prior story.

Critics have raised questions raised about whether the town could legally allow construction of one tower in the grassy area on the west end of the riverfront park, improvements to which were funded by state and federal grants in years past. A $2.45 million bulkhead and walkway project in the last decade was funded in part by a $200,000 environmental protection fund grant from the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.

Randy Simons, public information officer for that state agency told RiverheadLOCAL that, since the proposed use is a recreational use, there would be no legal issue with it as far as the state grant were concerned.

But Prusinowski questioned whether there’s enough room along the riverfront to build and anchor the tower, which Finnegan last week said would require an area of 40 by 40 feet.

“I told him I didn’t know if there was going to be enough room there to make the initial tower stable,” he said. “Those are the kinds of things that need to be worked out and that I’d like to know a little more about.”

Finnegan rounded out his Saturday evening excursion with a stop at an inaugural disco night at Athen’s Grill, in search of town board hopeful Anthony Coates, something Coates commended on his blog.

“I give this guy credit, after I beat him up on my blog he found out I was at Athens Grill downtown on Saturday night and he sought me out to discuss his project,” wrote Coates. “The Athens crowd doesn’t like the Zip Line but John came right into the lion’s den to talk anyway.”

Coates said though he doesn’t take issue with Finnegan, he remains opposed to the project.

“Other uses of the Riverfront would be completely compromised if this goes through,” he said. “This is a surrender of our Riverfront and the town’s called Riverhead. Why would we give that up? And for what? $40,000? Last time I saw a deal like this, the Indians lost Manhattan,” Coates said.

Though Finnegan was unable to nail down face time with the owner of Athens Grill, John Mantzapoulos, he did run into the owner of nearby Allied Optical, Jerry Steiner, who said he used the opportunity to give Finnegan an “earful.”

“I nicknamed him Irish,” said Steiner. “He’s a stand-up guy because he read what was going on and took the opportunity to go sell his idea downtown. I told him, basically, you’re screwed. I don’t see this thing happening.”

Finnegan said Steiner was a “hoot,” adding, “When he called me a man of vision, I thought it was a compliment. I didn’t know he was being sarcastic.”

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